Taking time to learn about a company's ethical standards can pay off
By Andrea Kay
These days, a lot of people go around saying, "I'll take a job with anyone or any company, I don't care who they are." My advice: Not so fast.
Especially these days, you want to know not just about the job and responsibilities, but what kind of company you'd be working for and about its philosophy and ethics. Working for the wrong person or firm could not only leave you out of work, but branded.
This isn't easy to root out. But there are questions you can be asking and there is information to unearth to help you decipher just what kind of place you might be getting yourself into.
First, look for the obvious. Does the company you're considering post a code of conduct on its Web site and other conspicuous places? Just because something is in writing doesn't make it so. But when a company goes to the trouble to create and post such a code, it's a good start.
What's a code of conduct? A set of values that guides how a company operates that doesn't ensure good behavior, but certainly encourages it. "Building an enterprise-wide ethical culture reduces misconduct by as much as 75 percent," says Dr. Patricia J. Harned, president of the Ethics Resource Center in Arlington, Va.
If a company has a decent ethics and compliance program that is well implemented, it nearly doubles employee reporting of misconduct, she says. Less misconduct takes place and when it does, management is more likely to know about it.
When you're in an interview try to get a general sense of a company's ethical culture, how things get done and who gets rewarded. How does a company motivate people through pay? How do people get ahead? Is it by any means necessary? Or is it when someone is successful while upholding a high standard of integrity?
When you're in an interview, notice how the interviewer refers to such ethics standards, Harned says. Is emphasis placed on these being taken seriously by employees? Specifically, she suggests asking:
Depending on the situation, these can be trickier to pose: Do employees ever feel pressured to cut corners to get their jobs done? When was the last time you recall anyone in management talking about ethics at work?
Even if you're not personally involved in an ethics scandal, the association can affect you.
Take Frederick Yang, political consultant to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Yang was just hired by the lieutenant governor of Kentucky to conduct some polling. Yang was not charged in the Blagojevich scandal. However, an Associated Press article referenced the lieutenant governor's campaign manager pointing out that Yang "is a respected political consultant who did nothing wrong in the Blagojevich scandal."
I have had several clients who, after leaving a firm that made news for unethical behavior, found that their personal reputation had been tainted just by working there. When it came to marketing themselves, we had to figure out how to manage this perception. It wasn't easy.
Over the years, I have yet to meet anyone who has asked these kinds of questions of a company. But I have met dozens of people who wished they had. "It is fair to say that we have an ethics crisis in America," Harned says. With that in mind, maybe it's time you start asking.
