In the company culture, ethics is a necessary pillar for the organization to be established and the company’s image to be projected. To build a solid culture it is necessary to create a set of values that improve the environment and interpersonal relationships at work, such as respect, empathy, and equality, among others.
In this article, we will discuss further and show the importance of ethics and respect as significant pillars of company culture.
A good work ethic, besides maintaining a great environment and company growth, attracts better professionals to add to the teams and projects. Allied with ethics, the organizational culture brings a set of values defined to guide the company during all its projects and actions.
How to promote ethics and respect at work:
- Encourage honesty: being open and honest with the team or managers helps in solving problems and maintaining a light and aligned environment;
- Develop a code of ethics: it is important to explain the vision, mission, and values and make the standards of conduct and behavior as clear as possible;
- Promote formations: workshops and formations to maintain and teach about good practices and culture are important to make clear the company’s values and what it seeks in employees;
- Recognize and reward: to motivate teams, the company should recognize and reward those who demonstrate behaviors that are in the company’s ethics and culture.
With shared values, norms, and behavior throughout the company, the culture becomes well-consolidated and shapes the company’s positioning internally and in the marketplace.
Furthermore, the company culture interferes with decisions and how conflicts are resolved, as well as how employees interact and work.
How to identify some important elements of company culture:
- Values: guide people’s actions and include honesty, integrity, and dialogue;
- Beliefs: involves the micro and the macro, they are the convictions that the company considers;
- Norms: are the written or unwritten rules that govern people’s behavior;
- Behaviors: these are the actions that everyone has individually and together in the company’s day to day.
Considering these points, we can also analyze what the lack of professional ethics can cause in the work environment for individual employees and for the company as a whole. The risks may involve a lack of trust from managers and co-workers, stagnation of the company in the market, loss of talent, and difficulties in attracting new professionals.
Benefits of an ethical professional environment:
- Improves the atmosphere of the organization.
- Increases team productivity
- Provides a healthy environment
- Increases clarity in processes
- Increases team unity
Developing the team’s soft skills is a way to make the environment more reliable and comfortable for people to open dialogue and keep the professionals more ethical and healthy. These characteristics involve emotional intelligence, empathy, ability to listen and understand others.
It is important that the company’s HR works to make this bridge with the team and strengthen the leadership and the company’s values so that there is always good communication and everyone is comfortable with dialogue.
Despite the importance that HR has, guiding and clarifying work ethics and a respectful environment is the role of all employees, leaders, and managers so that the day-to-day is based on trust, collaboration, and transparency.