To Be Productive (aka 2bProductive Blog): Ethics Training for Employees?

When ethics thraing became all the rage in businesses in the 1980 and 1990's, many wondered why. Many are still wondering why. Many government contracts require certain "compliance" training be taught to for companies to get and keep thosee contracts. Do this requirements really make people more honorable and willing to do what is right or instead make them want to find "work-arounds" rather than have honest values and good morals. Ethics training in many corporations is a safety net, just-in-case they get a legal suit filed against them. It is not just ethics, the same legal safety net idea of training applies to sexual harrassment and diversity-type training as well. Why do people question these types of training?

Perhaps the reason people do not see ethics training as relevant is that they believe the basic principles should have been established elsewhere. Morality and doing right is supposed to be developed in church. Good character, valuing others, respectful manners, and not stealing is supposed to be imbued by parents through motivation and discipline. Good conduct is supposed to be taught in schools. Ethics and honesty is supposed to be reienforced in college. So are ethics still passed up from youth to adulthood or is this an old-fashioned idea?

In the workforce, ethics is a leadership issue more than an employee issue. Leaders must be a character example of what they want the corporate ethos to be. If the manager pads his expense statements, how can he expect his employees to be honest? If a supervisor takes home office supplies for her children to use as their school supplies, how can she trust her employees not to steal from the company? Instead of (or at least along with) off-the-shelf ethics training, leaders need to be examples of the values they want in their employees. Perhaps leaders also need to get involved with their communities to help make sure the old ways of training up a child or teen in the way they should act and think are still taught.