Identifying and avoiding unethical behavior

When a person is starting a company, one thing that he or she mostly doesn’t even think of that, there will be any problem like unethical behavior at the workplace. How can we identify and also avoid unethical activities by team members? This type of unethical behavior has been seen many times in big corporations. 

When such incidents come in front of the public. A company’s image starts spoiling and it causes loss of the brand value. Sometimes it will be the reason for employees finally leaving their jobs. And many more things start going wrong. So, Identifying and avoiding unethical behavior in our corporate is a very important thing.

WHAT’S IN IT

Unethical Workplace Behaviors

Taking Credit for others’ work

This is unethical behavior, which is mostly shown in the managers. It is not necessary that only leaders and higher authorities can bring good ideas. The employees also can think of good ideas. Sometimes what happens is the employee suggests a new idea to the team and then they work hard on it. And when the manager has to present that idea to the higher authorities then the manager doesn’t even mention the name of the person who has suggested that idea.

By doing such an unfair thing, the manager is taking all the credit of the employees. If this continues like this, eventually the employee will think that he is not getting appreciation and promotion for his work. So he or she will stop suggesting new ideas to the team. Which is not beneficial for the company in the long term.

Telling a lie

When you come to know that the other person has lied to you the trust will be broken. And it will affect your relationship with that person from now, onwards. Once the trust is broken it takes years to develop a second time. In companies the employees sometimes lie for holiday, a manager lies about how many clients they have joined last week and many more. These lies will cause big trouble one day.

Stealing money from the company funds

Sometimes, Company gives a required amount of money to the employees for the expense of the project. But what some employees do is, they use cheaper quality products in the project and the extra money they transfer to their personal bank account. They are doing company losses financially and also the project they have done is made up of cheap quality materials. So, this can be considered as very unethical behavior which should be punished.   

Also many other unethical behavior seems to be noticed at the workplace like,  Misusing company time by doing non-office related work, abusive behavior, Violating company internet policies, etc.

Practices to avoid the unethical behavior

Create strict policies

The company should have strict policies. The leader should tell all rules and regulations of the company to the newly joined members. If someone disobeys the guidelines and you notice his or her unethical practice in the office, you should warn them and if the mistake is bigger that fits that employee for sure. So, the other employees will think before doing such unethical behavior.

Use the influence power of being a leader

Leaders should work harder than their employees. Thus, the employees will take inspiration from you and also try to be like you. I also have seen in many companies that bosses are not doing any work and just yelling to the employees. Being a case of unethical behavior to this type of boss’ office is quite usual. 

Appreciate the hard work and loyalty

This is one of the important things, that could prevent unethical behavior at the workplace. Getting loyal employees is getting harder day by day. If someone is working loyalty and doing hard work for the results then their hard work should be appreciated. There should be a bonus, gift or one extra holiday given to the hard worker employees. So, they will get to know that their work has some worth for the company and from then on they will try to work harder. And others will also try to get the award and the appreciation.

Hire the right one

Mostly, the company hires a person with good working skills and good education. They should also focus on their loyalty, nature and behavior with others. In most of the cases where unethical behavior is noticed like stealing documents or money from the office, there have been noticed that a union of 3 or 4 people are there included in that crime. So, hiring employees with good ethics will develop a positive environment in your office. On the other side if two or more bad people will also influence others and make such a fraud union.

Invite motivational speakers

Nowadays, most people are not happy with their job because there is nothing new happening to them. If such types of events like a motivational speech by some well-known personality will motivate them to achieve goodness by doing the right thing. Moreover, these programs will also teach ethical values to them and keep your employees at a distance from unethical behavior. 

Make your employee feel that you have trust in them

In the corporate world, don’t trust anyone so quickly. You will get to know who is the person on whom you can trust. But leaders should treat everyone like the leader trusts them the most among all others. So, the people will respect your trust in them and try to prevent it from breaking.

Strictness is required

After all the management has to take some strict actions to make sure that everyone will try to obey the rules, regulations and policies. The management should do a surprise audit sometime. Thus, the employees will think many times before doing any type of unethical behavior.

Conclusion

Not one single corporate is perfect. There will always be negativity. If the leader will be the one who knows how to get work done from every type of person, then the company will definitely grow. And if the leader doesn’t know how he should behave with the employees then there will be chances of unethical activities. 

Also read our blog on Changing People’s Habits – Encouraging and Sustaining New behaviors

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