Let's have a look at a few of the internal effects bad business ethics can have on a company…
1. Decreased productivity
When the culture at the company is to get the sale at all costs, what tends to happen is that employees begin to subvert protocols and procedures that might otherwise slow down the sale.
Further down the line what we then find is that work needs to be redone or errors fixed, which negatively affects productivity.
Another possibility is that employees who do abide by their ethical codes begin to feel as though their well-meaning efforts are less successful than their unethical counterparts, and thus lose motivation and the will to work.
2. Loss of respect
In our hearts we usually know what the right thing is to do. Sometimes we call this our "gut feel". When we experience our managers and leaders making decisions that to us clearly feel wrong, we tend to lose respect for those individuals.
It is very difficult for a leader whose team does not respect him or her to run a successful company. Additionally, besides a lack of respect, employees may also grow to resent individuals who continue to thrive despite their less-than-sound decision-making.
3. Overall credibility
Companies that display unethical behaviour also lose the respect of the public.
Customers may decide to stop doing business with you and in most cases it takes a well-planned and executed marketing and rebranding campaign to regain credibility, and even then it may never be what it was before.
Internally you could begin to find that your employees share the public sentiment and themselves resent working for such a company, lowering productivity, morale and respect throughout the organisation.
Does your company display ethical leadership? Do you think your company makes ethical decisions?
Staff Training presents Business Ethics and Diversity Training in-house (at your premises) nationwide. Contact us for more information.