Ethics empower, motivate staff

Bradwell Mhonderwa Business Ethics
The concept of staff motivation is as old as the human resource profession itself. Theorists have been researching motivation for a number of years with a view of seeking to maximise employee productivity and increase business profitability.  From Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, to David McClelland’s theory X and Y, to Herzberg’s two factor theory and many others. These theorists agree that employees have needs that must be satisfied in order to motivate them to do more in their jobs.

The Wikipedia defines motivation as the process by which a person’s efforts are energised, directed, and sustained towards attaining set goals. Traditionally organisations have used financial and non-financial methods to motivate staff.

The commonly used non-financial methods include job rotation, job enrichment, job enlargement, flexible working hours, and financial methods include performance related pay, bonuses, profit-sharing, and profit- related pay.

Employee empowerment is another concept that has become significant in staff motivation. Employee empowerment postulates that giving employees skills, resources, authority, and opportunity as well holding them responsible and accountable for the outcomes of their actions will contribute towards their competence, satisfaction, and motivation.

As one HR practitioner intimated: “Your goal as the manager is to create a work environment in which employees are empowered and happy. You don’t need to bother them by setting numerous controls. Trust them to do the right thing. Get out of their way and watch them catch fire.”

This quote explicitly speaks to the heart of employee empowerment, and indeed empowered employees become motivated employees.
However, motivating employees in organisations with weak ethical practices is a very difficult task.  Apparently, when employees work in organisations they perceive to be unethical, they tend to become motivated to engage in clandestine dealings at the expense of everything else.

Engaging in clandestine activities such as embezzlement of funds, fraud, short changing customers, theft and misuse of company property is thus viewed as more rewarding and fulfilling, regardless of the risks involved, and perpetrators become instant heroes and role models in the workplace while those who

don’t engage in such acts are castigated as naïve and weak.
Apparently, if unethical business practices are allowed to go unchecked for a long time, they create a retrogressive culture that renders bona fide organisational staff motivation processes useless.

To discourage the validation of wrong cultures and help restore the dignity of staff motivation in the workplace, organisations in the country must introduce formal ethics management processes.

Employers should understand that ethics empowers employees to report misconduct perpetrated by colleagues, and that ethics inhibit all forms of inappropriate behaviour in the workplace.

Ethics is the glue that holds organisations together. It is the opium for staff motivation, and ethics inspires employees to do better and more for their organisations.  Practising ethics through clearly laid down ethics policies and procedures is what should become the norm in every business entity in the country.

Organisations without sound ethics experience all sorts of personnel problems such as high staff turnover, low morale, high absenteeism, stressed employees, a poor industrial relations climate, misuse of company property, etc.

An ethical workplace builds trust between employer and employees. Business ethics empower and motivate employees in a number of ways which include the following:

• Employees are motivated more when they work for organisations that are ethical than those that are not.

• Ethical workplaces reduce levels of employee job dissatisfaction and improve employee morale

• Employees become motivated to work when they find that their bosses take ethics seriously and exemplify ethical behaviour.

• Ethical workplaces promote employee participation in decision-making and they share knowledge with them.

• Ethical workplaces view mistakes and conflict as opportunities for learning

• Ethics cause employees to feel respected and treated fairly.

Ethical practices secure a good return on investment. As proven by a research carried out by the UK  Institute of Business Ethics in 2007, ethical practices positively correlate with business financial performance.

Indeed, ethics must be a standard of practice for all 21st century organisations, and these should always be asking themselves questions like:

• Do we have clear ethical guidelines to give direction to employees on expected ethical behaviour?

• Do we have leadership that takes ethics seriously and exemplify ethical behaviour?

• Do we have mechanisms to monitor and evaluate such processes to ensure they remain effective and relevant?

These are pertinent questions every responsible organisation must ask itself to ensure it has on its payroll ethically empowered and motivated workforce.

Bradwell is an applied behaviour analyst and ethics coach. For feedback email [email protected] or call 0772 913 875