A suburban Rotary Club in Minneapolis invited me to speak on personal and Business Ethics. Check out these stats.
1) According to the Education Testing Service in a survey of 12,000 high school students, 74% admitted to cheating to get ahead.
2) 55% of these students didn’t see a problem with cheating as others were doing it. They fell entitled and did not wish to be left behind other students. This is a pathetic trend.
3) According to Hire Right, a firm that specializes in employee back ground checks:
80% of all resumes are misleading
20% state fraudulent degrees
30% show altered employment dates
40% have inflated salary claims
30% have inaccurate job descriptions
27% give falsified references
How does that make you feel as personnel or HR manager? Who is honest, ethical, and has Business Ethics?
In addition, over sixty percent of people who have been out of work for at least six months or more are submitting false information on their resumes to prospective employers.
The amount of dishonesty, lack of accountability, amount of discrimination, amount of greed, need for power/control, and blaming others is leading this country and our businesses down the wrong path.
Forget about our financial and massive debt problems for a moment. We have become morally bankrupt and it must stop right now.
Want some takeaways?
Take away #1: every company needs an ethics statement and or code of conduct in place. Don’t bring the document out when a new employee is hired and tell them to read and sign it and then never review it again. Business Ethics is every bit as important as sales and must be a part of a company’s culture all the time.
Take away #2: do not put yourself first and take shortcuts. One shortcut leads to another.
Take away #3: the most important traits I can think of are grace and humility. Arrogance and greed has killed many a company.
Take away #4: no organization is invulnerable-misconduct and breakdowns are inevitable. Create a meaningful mission statement, compliance program, and build an ethical culture.
Sound Business Ethics is good and will save you more money than you can imagine. Always strive to do the right thing!!
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