Allegiance Blog

One of the most important lessons that Enron, WorldCom and the recent financial/Wall Street meltdown has taught us is just how damaging unethical behavior can be to a company, and how important it is for businesses today to establish ethical standards in the workplace as well as support those who do come forward to report unethical behavior.

For instance, the Ethics Resource Center’s (ERC) 2007 National Business Ethics Survey found that over the past year, more than half (56 percent) of employees surveyed had personally observed violations of company ethics standards, policy or the law. Many saw multiple violations. And, unfortunately, more than two of five employees (42 percent) who witnessed misconduct did not report it through any company channels.”

Part of the reason for this is that many employees are not comfortable reporting bad behavior for fear of potentially losing their jobs, being considered a “snitch”, and/or fear of retaliation from the guilty party.

However, the good news is that more and more companies are beginning to recognize this, as one of the positive things we’ve seen recently is a growing desire among businesses to show their responsibility and adopt best practices, as well as ensure stricter ethical standards and practices in their workplace. In doing so, these businesses are not only looking for programs to help them establish and promote ethical standards (or are re-evaluating their existing programs), but are also looking for different ways to better assist and support employees in coming forward to report unethical behavior. And hopefully, this will help prevent a lot of unethical behavior from happening in the future.

Clay Osborne, Director SilentWhistle Sales, Allegiance

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