Surveys on ethics improve performance

Many companies are now seeking to develop company ethics frameworks to guide their staff, on top of the traditional methods companies use to cultivate ethical workplace behaviour.
Surveying staff on ethics is one tool firms can use to manage their ethics environments because employees in most cases have more information on what is going on in the organisation, and given the right platform, are willing to speak out.
Human Resources practitioners use staff surveys to measure a number of workplace variables that include job satisfaction, absenteeism, staff turnover, etc.
In a like manner, companies can use surveys of staff to gauge the ethical temperature of a business.
Here, the surveys will focus on employees’ experiences, perceptions, and awareness of the company’s ethical values and business practices.
Staff opinion can also be captured through questions asked during performance appraisal sessions, exit interviews, and focus groups.
Performance appraisals are traditionally conducted to enhance the quality of organisational decisions with regard to determining pay rises, promotions, discharges and training for employees.
For individual employees, appraisals are also a source of information that helps them to make realistic self-assessments and individual decisions on career choices and growth.
During a performance appraisal session, employees can be asked what ethical challenges they face in their day-to-day work in the same way that they are asked what training they might require to improve their performance.
Appraisals can also be used to gauge an employee’s ethical prowess and commitment in order to reward it.
Other questions may include asking employees what practices they have observed in the firm that are incompatible with expected ethical conduct, and which aspects of their work that they feel they need ethical guidance. It is also important to carry out exit interviews. These are interviews Human Resources and/or line managers conduct with departing employees, just before they leave.
From the employer’s perspective, the primary aim of the exit interview is to know the reasons for the person’s departure.
Exit interviews are an ideal opportunity to obtain frank information on how an employee views the company, information which firms can use to improve a number of work-related variables including the company’s ethics environment.
Exit interviews are thus a unique opportunity to survey and analyse the opinions of departing employees about the company’s ethics policies, challenges, and possible solutions.
In leaving an organisation, departing employees feel “liberated” and are ready to say it all, unlike the “non-liberated” remaining staff who are always cautious when responding to staff attitude surveys.
Exit interviews have the potential to unravel all issues that inform the ethics environment of the firm, which may include the firm’s relationship with staff, customers, suppliers, regulators, and all other stakeholders. Workgroups and focus groups are forums which when properly organised can help companies delve deeper into disentangling the critical ethical matters of the firm.
While the main purpose of ethics training is to help employees understand ethics policy and resolve ethical challenges, customised or company-specific ethics training is another effective means to measure the ethics tempo of a firm.
Engaging employees in ethics surveys ensures that they feel that their opinion counts, and will view the whole process of managing ethics in the organisation as their own, hence supporting it and wanting to live by it.
Katherine Bradshaw, Dr Nicole Dando, and Dr Andrea Werner of the Institute of Business Ethics in the UK suggest that ethics surveys could focus on the following four broad areas namely;
Staff opinion including their perceptions, feelings, beliefs, judgments, attitudes and levels of satisfaction, regarding for example, the conduct of the organisation, or of individuals, such as their colleagues and managers.
Staff awareness and understanding of ethical values, standards, and company ethics management infrastructure.
Staff experiences such as their observation of misconduct by colleagues, and agents such as suppliers, regulators, creditors, etc, and the pressure they have felt to act unethically, or the support they have been given by management to act ethically.
The ethical sensitivity or ethical acumen of staff, e.g. their ability to recognise and handle an ethical dilemma, or their awareness of ethical issues material to their duties and organisation.
Notwithstanding all this, ethical surveys of staff can become very reliable and effective when there is demonstrable participation of the board and the CEO in the whole process.
The right tone at the top will signal to employees that the survey has strategic value to the company and are ready to embrace it hook, line and sinker.