How Employee Training Contributes to Your Ethical Workplace Culture

In 2022, accounting firm Ernst & Young was fined $100 million by the SEC after finding that some employees cheated on exams they needed to become Certified Public Accountants, specifically the ethics portions. According to the CBC, “EY admitted it did not correct its submission even after an internal EY investigation confirmed there had been cheating, and even after its senior lawyers discussed the matter with the firm’s senior management.”

This incident proves that even large, established, respected companies with plenty of resources experience ethics lapses. To protect your organization from suffering the same fate, you need to stress the importance of ethical behavior to your employees.

Well-crafted employee training modules not only set employees up for success in the workplace, but also protect other employees (from issues like harassment) and your organization (from lawsuits and non-compliance penalties).

But what is ethics training? Why do you need it? Read on to learn why training is a key component of an ethical culture.

How Ethics Training Drives Your Employee Ethics Strategy

To ingrain ethics into your organizational culture, “it’s important to think about how to do things more systematically,” says professor Maryam Kouchaki from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

That means you need to promote ethical behavior at every stage, process and procedure in an employee’s experience with your organization. When interviewing candidates, ask questions about their ethics as well as their experience. Highlight your organization’s values while onboarding new hires. You should even incorporate ethics into employees’ performance reviews, Kouchaki suggests.

However, all of these things can’t replace traditional ethics training. Training should give employees a big-picture view of your organization’s ethical standards, outline real-life scenarios they might encounter and offer them a chance to ask questions. Ethics training shouldn’t be your only approach to creating an ethical culture, but it should be a robust, regular part of your strategy.

What to Include In Your Workplace Ethics Training Module

Employee ethics training modules are “often narrowly focused on the dos and don’ts” of a workplace, with little information about ethical gray areas (Kellogg School of Management).
As a result, you should expand your training program “to include information on the types of situations where people are most likely to go astray and the types of justifications that are commonly used when committing infractions.” To do so, share complex scenarios and ways to address each one to guide employees’ behavior.

Industry- and Job-Specific Information

Each industry (and even job function) has its own unique situations that require employees to make ethics-related choices. For instance, a wealth manager has to decide what risks to take with a client’s money. At the team level, a manager must decide if she will take credit for a successful project that was actually her employee’s idea.

One company that is doing this well is United Airlines. The company recently implemented their Core4 training program where employees learn how to be “caring, safe, dependable and efficient” when dealing with common (and uncommon) travel scenarios. Employees “participate in role-playing exercises in groups to try to solve customer service issues, afterward discussing the rationale for why they handled a scenario in a certain way.” The airline’s goal is to improve employees’ emotional intelligence and compassion, encouraging kind, ethical behavior no matter what customers might throw at them.

Whether they work in customer-facing roles or behind the scenes, employees will absorb and understand better if you illustrate your organization’s ethical standards using examples they’ll really encounter.

Ethics “Tests”

There’s no way to train employees on every possible ethical conundrum they could face at work. That’s why you should end your training sessions with a few general “tests,” they can apply when they’re unsure how to respond.

Try using these examples from Triple Crown Leadership:

• Front Page Test: “Imagine reading about the decision in the headlines, with your name and photo prominently displayed. How would you look and feel, and what effect would it have on your reputation, relationships, and business prospects?”
• Consequences Test: “The consequences of unethical decisions can be severe, so it is wise to consider them in advance. Think not only of the potential monetary costs associated with certain causes of action but also the reputational costs (brand equity), relationship costs, and psychological costs (the burden of regret).”
• Mirror Test: “Imagine making the decision and then look at yourself in the mirror. How do you feel? What do you see in your eyes? Does it trigger alarm bells, violate your principles, or summon a guilty conscience?”
• Universality Test: “Imagine if your course of action were to become standard practice for all people in all times (a universal maxim). Would that be a good and just outcome?”
• Role Model Test: “Given the choice before you, what would your role model (or someone you admire, such as a parent, sibling, friend, mentor, or coach) say or do? Have you asked him or her?”

There isn’t one right way to conduct ethics training in the workplace. To find the perfect formula for your organization, experiment with different delivery methods, module lengths and content to see what your employees respond to. Effective training might be the missing link to achieving your ethical culture, which creates a safe environment for employees and protects your organization from fines, penalties and lawsuits.

How Case IQ Can Help

A robust case management solution is a key component of a successful ethics program. Case IQ’s secure hotline, automated workflows and award-winning reporting tools make it easy to investigate, manage and prevent employee misconduct and ethics lapses all in one secure platform. Learn more here.