How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team?
Ethics are a set of guidelines and principles through which an action can be judged to be wrong or right. Ethics is one of the very oldest disciplines of morality. It was introduced by Aristotle who advocated for us to know what is good and what is bad. The bad is to be avoided. A business’ ethics is a major determinant of its reputation. Good business ethics are critical to the long-term success of an organization or firm (Xie, Liu, & Li 2011). Ideally, the implementation of a good ethical program leads to a positive business culture and thus increased profitability and the achievement of wealth maximization goal. It takes time and effort to develop a good ethically. However, these are the sacrifices that are worth since business ethics will have an effect on all the levels of business (Peters, 2015, pp10). This included customers, employees, financiers, and even competitors. It is worthwhile to note that according to the Principle of Ethics IV and Principle IV, Rule A, “individuals are supposed to maintain pleasant interprofessional and intra-professional relationships and agree to professions’ self-imposed standards.” This means that an individual ought to observe the established ethics in the organization as far as they align with the government rules and regulations.
The article that I am going to look at is entitled “How One Bad Employee Can Corrupt a Whole Team.” The article was published on March 5th, 2018. The authors of the article are Stephen Dimmock and William C. Gerken. This article has been obtained from the Harvard Business Review website. As the title of the article suggests, the article is on how an employee who is unethical can influence the other employees (Harvard Business Review, 2018).
The article fully manifests the reality behind the saying that “One bad apple can ruin the bunch.”In case a dishonest employee happens to work alongside employees who are ethical, he/she is likely to influence them in negative ways (Harvard Business Review, 2018).
The managers should understand that the costs associated with a problematic employee are quite massive. Bad behavior of one employee has the likelihood of spilling over into the behaviors of the coworkers due to the peer influences. Through under-appreciating those spillover consequences, a few corrupt workers have the possibility infecting a sound corporate culture Peters, 2015, pp13).
The article confirms that bad behavior of one employee can influence the behavior of other employees by conducting a research. The research inspected peer impacts in unfortunate behavior by monetary consultants, concentrating on mergers between money related warning firms that each has various branches. In these mergers, money related counsels meet new associates from one of the branches of the other firm, presenting them with new thoughts and practices (Harvard Business Review, 2018).
Extensive data was collected and effective analysis was carried out. The results revealed that in fact employees. The exploration found that budgetary consultants are 37% more prone to confer unfortunate behavior on the off chance that they experience another colleague with a background marked by the offense. This outcome infers that wrongdoing has a social multiplier of 1.59 — implying that, by and large, each instance of offense brings about extra 0.59 instances of unfortunate behavior through companion impacts (Kelly 2007, 100-1022).
To ensure that the behavior of one bad employee doesn’t affect the other employees, there is the need to set up some ethical principles. First, there is the principle of Punctuality. All employees should arrive in their respective workplaces at a particular time. Reason being that, if every employee arrives at their own time there will be no work progress. Moreover, employees should strictly adhere to scheduled meetings and other organizational activities (Velasquez 2018, pp 21).
Secondly, the principle of dress code should be practiced. Businesses should have certain dressing codes that are official and acceptable. Employees should not wear revealing clothes or those that attract attention because these may cause disruption and inappropriate comments that may trigger hostility among the employees. They should also wear their cards or badges to make it easy for identification (Hadi 2017, pp552-570).
Thirdly, there should be accountability (Rossouw and Van Vuuren 2017, pp 32). Business members should be accountable for the things going on in the business, in the event of any incurred losses or any physical accidents the members should be accountable.
There should be responsibility and discipline in the organization. Employees should ensure that all the tasks that are involved are completed in time. Deadlines should be taken well into account. Workers are also required to be polite and use appropriate words with each other. They should show respect for each other so as to enhance better relationships within the working environment with a positive attitude (Rossouw and Van Vuuren 2017, pp 36).
One needs to be perfect as a manager; the employees should look at you as an example (Gerald 2007, pp 49).They should imitate your ways as a leader. The employees should work with a positive attitude and with them having you as their role model they will adhere to the rules and ethics so easily without being pushed around because they have to respect you.
The business should programs that teach the need and the importance of having business ethics. These help the employees to understand the business ethics. They should also be taught the awareness of penalties applied in the event of misunderstanding and mistakes (Hadi 2017, pp552-570).
Writing a code of conduct is also another way of ensuring that employees behave ethically. It all starts with rules. When they are written down and agreed to by the members of the business organization, they become easier to follow and can be easily understood and not prone to forgetting (Weld 2014, pp 313-317).
There are various ethical theories that can be utilized by an organization so as to ensure that there is no employee who is behaving unethically (Pierce and Snyder 2013, pp 34). In this case, I will apply virtue ethics. According to the Virtue ethics a person’s personality is the input aspect of ethical thinking, rather than set of laws about the acts solely (Deontology)) or their consequences (Consequentialism). There are various principles that can be applied to ensure that the concepts of virtue ethics are put into practice by the organization.
First, the principle of loyalty should be put into practice. The employees should be loyal to the business. The secrets and the private matters of the business should not be exposed to the outside world. Without loyalty, the business may not succeed or prosper in any way because the weaknesses of the organization may be exposed to their competitors.
Secondly, the principle of honesty should be implemented. Managers should ensure that honesty is upheld in the business. When there is honesty in the business, there is trust among all the working partners so there is nothing that is hidden. All the problems are solved openly and all the mistakes are corrected openly.
Third, the principle of respect should be observed. Respect is one of the key principles of every business organization. When members of a business organization treat each other with respect the business is deemed to succeed and prosper because there will be easier communication between workers and proper management of the organization (Weld 2014, pp 313-317).
Fourth, the principle of commitment should be observed. This is putting ones effortful towards achieving a certain goal. When all the business organization members work fully and hard towards scoring goal the business tends to move upwards in terms of increase in profits (Bucken and Esptar 2011, pp 36).
Fifth, the principle of fairness should be put in place (Business-ethics.com, 2018). As a manager, the way employees are treated should be fair and equal. Equality should be emphasized in the business so that all the members can be able to relate freely with each other. Favoritism may bring a lot of injustices in the business organization thus lacking the main objective of the business. When a member of the business has committed a crime, justice should be applied and no kind of favoritism should be applied.
Businesses always expand with time, especially when profits are made. Expansion of businesses is always seen as success and prosperity; therefore, these businesses go ahead to partner with several other businesses till they reach in a foreign environment (Business-ethics.com, 2018).
There are common ethical issues in international businesses jurisdictions (Hodges & Mellett 2013, pp 12-16). First, there is the issue of working standards. These are the kind of conditions that are in a certain business environment. The standards should be attainable for all. When setting the working conditions, a lot of factors must be put into consideration, the business leaders should ensure that there is equality among all races especially in foreign businesses. The funds that are supplied to the members of the business should be given to every member so as to ensure that there is no racism in the business (Paul 2015, pp 43-48).
The second issue is on workplace diversity. When employing workers, cultural diversity should be looked into very carefully (Benard 2015, pp 140-142). One should ensure that the workers are not from different regions in a way that they may not understand each other especially the issue of language barrier. At the same time, people are supposed to interact with each other especially to promote unity and to learn from each other.
The second issue is on gender. In some countries, there are some businesses that are limited to one gender. Hereby you find out that some women are not allowed to conduct some jobs because they are meant for. These can limit the expansion of the businesses and can make the business not expand leading to losses. These are because some of the people that have been denied the opportunity to work have a certain expertise that the others may lack (Benard 2015, pp 140-142).
The third issue is corruption. Corruption has been one of the vices that have been taking place in many countries. It has crippled the economies of several countries leading to delay in the development and growth of businesses. There have been cases where payments to government officials can remove the bureaucratic barriers to investments that create job customers (Economics & No 2010, pp 1-9).
The third issue is that of social media. Social media has become one of the best platforms for advertising business nationally and worldwide. Nowadays it has become harder to distinguish between the professional and personal stuff. Therefore, people should create some of the social media policies that can be followed strictly, so as to avoid loss of important data to the wrong people. These may also leak some of the important stuff of the business to the world thus destroying its reputation (Bucken and Esptar 2011, pp 36).
Fifth, there is the issue of technology. In the day to day, technology has been used widely in the business matters. The employers should alert the workers or rather the employees, how much of the privacy is being tracked. With the kind of technology that is being used nowadays, it’s easy to track people’s phones their laptops and tablets. Therefore, their personal stuff should be separated from their work stuff. Without clear supervision, the important stuff of the workers may leak globally or nationally and it is so unethical (Weaver 6th ed. 2017, p 65).
There are various recommendations to solve all the ethical issues mentioned in this discussion (Weld 2014, pp 254-259). First, the working conditions are all supposed to be favorable for all employees in the working team regardless of the color of the employees. Racism has become one of the major issues in the international business, these majorly consists of people being favored in terms of their skin color which is wrong. These are because some of the people that are discriminated have the knowledge to do something or rather are gifted in a certain way that others cannot have. So the business will end up losing some of the best workers around.
Gender issue should not be present at all in the business because both genders male or female should be treated equally. If workplaces are infested by gender biases there may be losses incurred in the business and the business environment may not be favorable at all. Gender biases should be curbed in all business organizations so as to ensure gender equality; equity and fairness are served well. These will help the business to grow and increase profits due to smooth running of the business. It also promotes respect among each other, respect to the leaders, the subordinate stuff, and all the working members (Agasisti et al. 2008, pp 1).
Corruption may lead to wastage of funds thus leading to massive losses. When there is corruption there is going to be political turmoil and people may start fighting against each other in the business environment. Bribery has been one of the issues that have brought many businesses to the ground. When business money is given out for the wrong, reasons there is a lot of wastage of funds and these may cripple the business from expanding .it may also lead to business bankruptcy. Corruption may bring the business a lot of problems like they may find themselves in courts for embezzlement of funds and a lot of money may be used to bail the business organizations out (Burges & Ratto 2014, pp 285-300).
Social media should be used in the appropriate way. One should be able to use social media personally and professionally .one should ensure that the business related stuff posted online is appropriate. For those people who have online shops should ensure that they have the legal requirements for them to conduct the jobs. Some of the online businesses have been deemed as a fraud because various customers have been complaining that the items they have requested or bought have not been delivered to them in time or not delivered at all Agasisti et al. 2008, pp 1).
Technology being used in the business environment should be appropriate too (Burgess & Ratto 2003, pp 285-300). The employees are supposed to be aware of the kind of security systems installed in the workplace. Their personal life should not be mixed up with the professional life. The employees should be alerted in cases there is tracking and they should all agree to submit their personal details to the head office so as to ensure that all the employees are monitored well and that no employee exposes the business secrets.
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