Stay Informed with Our Engaging Ethics and Compliance Blog

Regardless of the industry, unethical behaviour and illegal activity occur in the workplace every day Unethical behaviour greatly diminishes employee morale and business integrity. From fraud to discrimination to privacy breaches, there are many areas where misconduct takes place. Unethical behaviour in the workplace has also notably been on the rise with the events of the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked a group of business professionals about the most common ethical concerns in businesses today and this is what they said:

Whistleblowing has become much more mainstream and accepted over the past decade. New laws that protect employees from retaliation help them step forward to report wrongdoing. There are some recent trends that shine a light on legislation and government initiatives to encourage whistleblowers to speak up.

Many have felt this way and may feel there's no way out.

Should you consider an internal, or external ethics reporting system? If you are considering implementing a whistleblower hotline, there's much to take into account regarding features and benefits of an outsourced program compared to an internal system. Things to think about are budget, resources, and implementation plan, training and report review, response and analytics. What policies and codes need to be developed to support the system? What types of reporting do you need? How do you measure success? And of course, how important is an anti-retaliation policy?

Employees look to leadership to guide them on how to engage in the correct behaviour A number of years ago, Bernie Ebbers, co-founder of WorldCom said this: A Proposed Code of Ethics "Was a Colossal Waste of Time". We all know where that statement got him and the company. Every employee under Mr. Ebbers got the same message - find creative ways to make the numbers work.