Category: Bangalore University B.com Notes

Business Ethics is quality of being useful or desirable. It is commonly used to all things which people regard as good, desirable and just. We generally make value judgments on many matters like good, skilled, unskilled, bad etc. The statements are comparative. We have few terms generally used with different meaning at times not correctly.

These words and their means are:

(i) Norms:

Norms of expectations of a proper behaviour in a society. These are not requirements or must. Example: We in India treat elder with respect. When we address our teacher we say ‘Sir’.

(ii) Beliefs:

Ethical codes of thought. Belief is an abstract thinking process. Here there is no action as in norms. Beliefs support norms. Example: Thinking saving money, or energy.

(iii) Ethos:

Characteristics of a community or of a culture. Code of values by which a group or a society lives. Example: Generosity of a group.

(iv) Moral:

Concerns regarding principles of right and wrong. Example: It is always right to tell truth.

(v) Morality:

It is the standard that an individual or a group that knows that is good, what is right and which is proper. Example: Since last decade political morality is decreasing in India.

(vi) Moral norms:

Are expectations of society a level of morals in the society. Example: Do not harm innocent man.

(vii) Moral values:

Are desired level of morals. Usually these are statements, regarding describing moral features. Example: Honesty is best policy.

(viii) Moral behaviour:

Moral behaviour is a study of right and wrong in human behaviours.

Values of managers:

Business is driven by values. Values guide what a business manager should do and how the stakeholder reaction to these action. Following a set of good values a value system can be built in the organisation business thus can create good, services, employment of larger value.

A manager while accepting the values the considerations are:

(a) The values should be universal.

(b) Maximum good to greatest number of people.

The manager should be pragmatic in his approach. This comes by his experience and skill in knowing as to how a decision works in a given situation. Manager should have a feel of what is good for highest number. Manager should also evaluate the value built up in his control.

Some Factors

The individual’s personal code of behavior: The personal Code of Behavior is the result of the complex environment that influences one’s life.

The ethical standards imposed on a manager by his superiors also influence him in his decisions as to the morality of behavior. If the superior condones unethical activities such as padding expenses accounts, the subordinate is encouraged to look upon this activity as an acceptable practice.

The policies of the company also influence the determination of ethical conduct. Standards of behavior in an industry are often influenced greatly by the dominant firms in that industry. The authors of the company policy obviously have an effect that is decisive.

The ethical climate of a country. If, it is poor, then only giant corporations and large undertakings can stand competition and be viable; a small concern is apt to go bankrupt, since business is concerned with employment of a large number of persons, it has the obligation to see that it adheres to an ethical atmosphere. However, considerable differences occur among managers as to what is ethical or unethical; and business truly lacks a Code of Ethics.

Long-term growth: sustainability comes from an ethical long-term vision which takes into account all stakeholders. Smaller but sustainable profits long-term must be better than higher but riskier short-lived profits.

Cost and risk reduction: companies which recognise the importance of business ethics will need to spend less protecting themselves from internal and external behavioural risks, especially when supported by sound governance systems and independent research

Anti-capitalist sentiment: the financial crisis marked another blow for the credibility of capitalism, with resentment towards bank bailouts at the cost of fundamental rights such as education and healthcare.

Limited resources: the planet has finite resources but a growing population; without ethics, those resources are repleted for purely individual gain at huge cost both to current and future generations.

Corresponds to Basic Human Needs:

The basic need of every human being is that they want to be a part of the organisation which they can respect and be proud of, because they perceive it to be ethical. Everybody likes to be associated with an organisation which the society respects as a honest and socially responsible organisation. The HR managers have to fulfill this basic need of the employees as well as their own basic need that they want to direct an ethical organisation. The basic needs of the employees as well as the managers compel the organizations to be ethically oriented.

Credibility in the Public:

Ethical values of an organisation create credibility in the public eye. People will like to buy the product of a company if they believe that the company is honest and is offering value for money. The public issues of such companies are bound to be a success. Because of this reason only the cola companies are spending huge sums of money on the advertisements now-a-days to convince the public that their products are safe and free from pesticides of any kind.

Credibility with the Employees:

When employees are convinced of the ethical values of the organisation they are working for, they hold the organisation in high esteem. It creates common goals, values and language. The HR manager will have credibility with the employees just because the organisation has creditability in the eyes of the public. Perceived social uprightness and moral values can win the employees more than any other incentive plans.

Better Decision Making:

Respect for ethics will force a management to take various economic, social and ethical aspects into consideration while taking the decisions. Decision making will be better if the decisions are in the interest of the public, employees and company’s own long term good.

Profitability:

Being ethical does not mean not making any profits. Every organisation has a responsibility towards itself also i.e., to earn profits. Ethical companies are bound to be successful and more profitable in the long run though in the short run they can lose money.

Protection of Society:

Ethics can protect the society in a better way than even the legal system of the country. Where law fails, ethics always succeed. The government cannot regulate all the activities that are harmful to the society. A HR manager, who is ethically sound, can reach out to agitated employees, more effectively than the police.

Emotional honesty means being able to express your emotions and feelings to another person. It requires an awareness of what your true feelings are and what others’ true feelings are as well.

If we are emotionally honest with ourselves, we get to know our true selves better, which can lead to greater self-acceptance.

Being emotionally honest is not always easy. It can be particularly challenging for people who lack the capacity to self-reflect. Such people often end up unhappy, and their negative feelings can manifest in chronic anger, depression, and similar emotions.

In my experience, one of the main reasons many people (and if I’m being honest, men) have difficulties being emotionally honest is because they’re afraid to be vulnerable in relationships. The best relationships are not necessarily those with the least conflict. Rather, they set themselves apart by the depth of their emotional intimacy. While there are other factors, the ability to be vulnerable and authentic strengthens the deep sense of connection felt by intimate partners.

Authentic relationships cannot stand the test of time without emotional honesty. It’s only when we fully connect to our true selves and feelings that we can share ourselves with another person. To do this, we must get in touch with what we are feeling, communicate it to our partner, and reveal our deepest feelings and emotions.

For a relationship to be healthy and sustainable, emotional honesty needs to be met with emotional honesty. That is, both people in the relationship need to reveal their true selves and feelings. If one of the partners puts up walls, that makes it impossible for them to speak their emotional truth. It’s also likely an indication that they don’t trust themselves or their partner.

The benefits of emotional honesty are immeasurable. Indeed, what could be more fulfilling than living your truth and sharing it with someone close to you? If also puts you on a path towards authenticity and moves you away from superficiality and meaninglessness.

Emotional honesty can be defined as the ability to communicate our feelings and needs in an honest and respectful way. It means we are aware of our feelings and take the time to experience them instead of masking them with alcohol, drugs, food, and the like. While it isn’t sexy or even comfortable at times to focus on emotional honesty, it does lead to some pretty amazing results in most areas of our lives.  So if emotional honesty and living an authentic life is on the “to do” list this year, the following twelve points may help pave the way…

1. Promotes Authenticity

Harder than lifting double our body weight over our heads, being emotionally honest is one of the most challenging things we can do.  Who wants to admit they hate their job or are unhappy with their spouse? Who wants to feel anything other than the happiness and joy?

Unfortunately, we can’t ignore our negative feelings; they will bubble up at some point, be it tomorrow or years from now, in the form of chronic anger, stress, depression, and the like. By taking an emotional inventory, we are moving towards living an authentic life and promoting a deeper sense of intimacy with the important people around us.

2. Promotes Self-Awareness

To be able to share our true emotions with others we must begin by enhancing our self-awareness.  Our default response when asked “How are you today”, is usually something like “fine” or “good”, but fine and good aren’t emotions. Taking the time to ask ourselves how we are feeling may be a clue to why we are yelling at the driver in front of us or eating chocolate fudge ice cream straight out of the container (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Emotional self-awareness can not only help to explain why we do the things we do, but can help us connect to our feeling selves and expand our emotional vocabulary beyond just “fine” or “good”.  With practice, we can identify and experience a feeling more efficiently without experiencing the angry outbursts or bouts of depression that come with lack of acknowledgment.

3. Reduces Stress

How much negative energy does it take to push down our frustration and anger? How many times do we choose to bite our lip and not speak up only to have an angry outburst days later? Emotional dishonesty is a great way to ensure a heavier stress load (and all the negative health outcomes that result).

By learning the skills necessary (i.e. assertive communication) to respectfully share our feelings with others we not only reduce our stress in the long run, but demonstrate a higher level of respect and value within our relationships.

4. Enhances Relationships

Nothing can create an enhanced sense of intimacy and trust as much as emotional honesty can. From professional to personal relationships, being honest with self and others is a not only a component of emotional intelligence but necessary for effective workplace leadership.

Personal relationships can suffer if we are unable to express what we need. Unfortunately, this lack of honesty within a relationship can result in resentment and anger overtime leading to the end of the relationship.  Emotional honesty can not only bring us closer to those we love, but lead to happier and more fulfilling relationships (and who doesn’t want that)!

5. May Promote Acceptance

There are times when we get ourselves in a situation we aren’t that happy about. For example, our spouse takes a job in another town due to work and uproots the family in the process. Many of us may choose to “make the best of it” or “think positively” which, in turn, only helps to push down those emotions that need to be acknowledged.

Through emotional honesty, we are forced to sit with those negative feelings and move through them rather than ignore them or trying to think on the bright side. The result may lead to an acceptance of what we can’t change and making changes to things we can (i.e. like our perception of the move).

6. May Promote Change

Unlike choosing acceptance, emotional honesty can also promote change once we get real with the origins of our feelings. The changes may be as small as changing our route to work to avoid the traffic or as big as changing careers, towns, or spouses.

By taking the time to ask ourselves the big questions and getting to the roots of our feelings, we may be saving ourselves the pain, discomfort, and chronic disease that comes from the staying the same.

7. Requires Patience

As children, many of us are quick to learn to stifle the crying and anger and put on a happy face to be rewarded. As adults, this lack of emotional authenticity can lead to negative health and relationship outcomes. Taking a course in communication or reading the latest self-help book is great, but it is only through practice and patience that one can hone in on this skill.

For those who desire a positive change to their working and personal relationships, learning the skills is important but being patient with ourselves in putting them into practice is paramount to success.  One suggestion may be to find those people who are “easier” to practice on and work up to the harder ones later.  It may include writing down our feelings first and practicing what to say and how to say it.  There are many books published on the subject and offer worksheets to help us become real with ourselves and those around us.

8. Make No Promises

If one is emotionally honest, she may enjoy a higher quality of life and the positive health benefits that come from it. Unfortunately, committing ourselves to becoming an emotionally honest and assertive communicator does not promise those around us will reciprocate.

Relational outcomes may or may not be positive depending upon how the receiver hears the message.  It is one thing to work on our own “baggage” and learn how to communicate our needs to others, it another thing to expect others to do that (hard) work as well.

9. Strengthens Our Courage

Courage is not about being fearless but pressing on despite the fear. Emotional honesty promotes courage because it demands a level of openness that can create a sense of vulnerability. It takes courage to present our real selves to others for fear we won’t be loved (or liked) if we reveal our more prickly bits.

Let’s face it; it is easier to pretend to be happy, agreeable, and positive than to show our real feelings. Just like anything else, overtime being more aware and honest with our feelings will become second nature and (bonus) may promote others to do the same. 

10. May Influence Others

One of the biggest underappreciated benefits of emotional honesty is the effect it has on those around us.  From friends and family to work colleagues, when we allow ourselves to “put it out there” and be honest with our feelings and needs, there is a good chance a few others may follow.

Those leaders who are comfortable with showing vulnerability and emotions (in a professional yet human manner) demonstrate a level of humanity that isn’t present in those that strap on the same happy face day in and day out. 

11. The Key to Good Health

By burying our true emotions and selves we invite more negative feelings and more stress into our lives.  If emotional honesty can decrease our stress level it will also reduce the physiological effects that come with chronic stress.

As with exercise and eating well, being emotionally authentic and open with ourselves and others will strengthen our immune system, lower our heart rate and blood pressure, and provide us with all the good stuff that comes with a heightened quality of life!

12. Needs Constant Attention

When it comes to muscular strength we all know if we don’t use it we will soon lose it. The same can be said for the practice of emotional honesty.  Just like any behavior change, it takes a while before it is second nature and, even then, it can still take effort.

Although it may take some time to reap the benefits (like exercise) once they show up, it may become clear that it is easier to maintain emotional honesty than it is to revert back to wearing that mask.

You should seek to promote flexibility in your organization. You can do this by encouraging your employees to find new ways of doing business that are better. You should also be brave enough to do away with policies that do not work, because there are advantages that come with promoting flexibility in your organization.

Enhanced Competitiveness

One of the problems with an organization that is rigid and mechanistic is that it cannot adapt. Whatever challenges that come along will strain the organization. Eventually, a challenge will come along that’s so massive that the organization may falter.

One of the factors that seriously alters the playing field is technology. When technology comes along that is disruptive, companies that initially had an advantage find themselves at a disadvantage. They need to figure out ways in which they can use the old technology, which will refine their former business practices so that they can then regain their competitive edge.

An organization that is flexible will respond to changes by evolving. The most flexible organization does not fight change; a flexible organization accepts change as an inevitable part of the business environment, so it learns to maximize its opportunities whenever change comes along.

Improved Efficiency

A flexible company will be willing to try new methods and processes, even when the old processes seem to work just fine. Flexibility in business means that you don’t live by the maxim, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Instead, a flexible company will look for ways to find something that works more efficiently than what you already have.

Let’s start with your company policy. As a flexible company, you should be willing to review and refine your corporate policies so that you will encourage innovation, so that you can then find more-efficient and more-effective methods. This is a key factor in how important it is to have flexibility in operations management.

As time progresses, this culture of constantly experimenting and improving your processes will mean that your company becomes more efficient, so that it can enjoy higher revenues and reduced costs.

Your Scheduling Becomes More Flexible

The most flexible organizations offer their employees a more diverse range of options. These organizations make it easier for their employees to lead personal lives that are more fulfilling, while also enabling the employees to meet their work commitments.

One factor that can help is to allow your employees to telecommute – or at least, to offer them a flexible work schedule. This would be a boon to your employees, since it would benefit those who have families or other responsibilities.

Another example of a flexible organization is that you could consider allowing job sharing, so that you could split one job among two employees, who each work part-time, rather than having one employee who works full-time. You will be allowing the two job-sharing employees to have more flexibility in their scheduling, thereby enabling them to become more productive.

When you accommodate your employees’ needs like this, you enable your employees to become more loyal to your company, so that it becomes easier for you to retain your best employees who might otherwise have left the company, had your company offered only a rigid schedule.

Better Team Building

When your management structure is flexible, you will get the most out of your workforce, depending on their individual talents. No two people are the same, so no two employees have exactly the same skill sets. A good manager knows how to bring people together who have differing talents and then to unite them under a single cause.

When you unite your team so that their skills complement each other, you have a flexible unit that can handle a diverse range of issues. They become able to take on any challenge that comes their way, and in so doing, they enable the organization to become more effective.

A manager who is too rigid won’t do this. He will try to force square pegs through round holes. putting his employees into roles where their abilities are not effective and their weaknesses are magnified. The result is that they will become less productive, thereby making the organization less productive as a result.

Better Continuity During Uncertainty

One of the characteristics of a flexible organization is that it is prepared for uncertainty. By having its workforce distributed among different places and working using different media, the organization is better able to handle uncertain conditions that would make it difficult for a centrally located organization to cope. Such things as storms, tornadoes, and other natural disasters make it difficult for rigid organizations to adapt and maintain continuity.

A flexible organization will also be able to deal with uncertainty in economic and technological environments. Such a company should have measures in place, in the event of changes in technology, regulation, or even the economy.

Your Environmental Impact Is Reduced

When you install flexible work schedules and you leverage the power of the internet to enable your employees to work remotely, you have fewer buildings to maintain. Your employees also have to do a lot less commuting to and from work, which means your organization’s carbon footprint will also be reduced.

Another thing about flexible organizations is that they use technology, which is electronic, so that they do not have much paperwork. They also reduce the amount of office supplies they use. This also reduces the carbon footprint of the organization, thereby making it more environmentally friendly.

Hiring Costs and Turnover Costs Are Reduced

Of course, when your organization is flexible, it will accommodate your employees’ needs and schedules, which means that they will have a healthier work-life balance, and they will be more satisfied with their jobs. Such satisfied employees will be more likely to stay with your company.

You will get to hold on to your best employees and enjoy increased productivity from them. Also, you won’t have to deal with a high turnover, which happens when employees aren’t satisfied with an organization, so you will not need to fill vacant positions as frequently, so you will save on hiring costs.

Your Organization Will Grow Faster

A more-flexible organization will grow more quickly than a rigid organization, because it is always seeking processes and methods that work better than those it currently has. Such an organization will also utilize technology, which will enable its employees to work remotely and to collaborate virtually. Such teamwork tends to be more productive than other work structures, while also costing much less to maintain.

A flexible organization will also identify more opportunities in the environment and will take advantage of these opportunities, thereby enabling itself to profit in environments in which more-rigid companies wouldn’t be able to prosper.

There are too many benefits of a flexible organization to list, but these are most of them. When you enable your company to become adaptable, it is able to evolve with the times, and it will survive longer, becoming continually more prosperous.

Purity of Mind

Purity of Mind. That’s the goal many aim for when they set out on the path of practicing mindfulness and meditation.

But the one mistake they often make, and which they continue to make, while pursuing this goal is that they continue to remain attached to their existing desires, and worse, they continue to form another types of desires all the time.

As long as your mind is filled with any kind of desire no matter how big or small that desire may be how can you say that you have a pure mind?

A pure mind, by its very definition, means a mind that is free of all impurities, and these impurities are nothing but all those desires that you hold up in your mind.

If your mind is pure then it won’t have any desires, and if there are desires then your mind isn’t pure. It’s as simple as that.

However, we won’t be wrong to think that our mind can have different levels of purity. A person with fewer desires should have a purer mind than one with many desires. Right?

So, even if you think that you can’t give up all your desires in life, and I do understand that we all need at least a few basic desires in order to survive and live in this world, what you can do is try to give up as many of these desires as you possibly can from your life.

Besides the number of desires that you have in you, another factor that decides how much purity of mind you have is how intense is the nature of your desires.

You may have only a few desires, or even just a single desire, but if those desires are so intense within you that you keep thinking about them all the time, then that may actually be worse than having several little desires.

So, if you seek purity of mind, the two things you need to work upon are, first, to reduce the number of desires you have and, second, to reduce the intensity of the desires that you have.

Practice these two things in your daily life, and it will be enough to take you closer towards achieving a pure mind some day.

Now, talking about desires, it’s easy for me to tell you to give up your desires, and it’s easy for you to read and understand this. But what’s difficult for both of us is to actually practice this in our daily lives.

Once a desire gets attached to your mind, it becomes hard to detach it and let it go.

So, in reality, before we even begin to work upon removing our existing desires, we should first try not to form any new desires in our mind.

Otherwise, what’s the use of taking so much effort to remove one desire, if you are only going to replace it with another one. If you continue to form one desire after another throughout your life, you will never become free from them, and that also means that you will never become free of suffering.

By not allowing yourself to form any new desires, you at least make sure that you don’t further fall back in your path to achieve purity of mind.

As far as your existing desires are concerned, there is no other way except to try to live your life without indulging in them. I know how hard it can become to live so, but for better or for worse, that’s the only way there is.

When you try to give up your desires, you will find that some desires are easier to give up than others. The ones that are the toughest to give up are those that are deeply ingrained within us, and those that we have let ourself indulge in for the longest period of time.

There are a few basic desires present in all of us because of the nature of our very own body and mind: the desire for food, power, wealth, lust, fame and praise.

More often, it’s some form of these basic desires that are the toughest to give up.

This is because these desires, over a period of time, have formed such a tight grip on our mind that we can’t imagine living our life without them.

For those who only believe in seeking some form of pleasure in their life all the time, even the idea of living their life without any desire seems scary and impossible to them. They may even think that their life has no meaning without their desires.

But what they don’t realize now, and, unfortunately, what they’ll only realize when it’s already too late, is that the only thing these desires lead them to is suffering.

Even when you don’t see this suffering, even as you feel immensely happy in chasing your desires, what you fail to see is that this suffering always exists behind every desire that you chase.

The reason you don’t see, or become aware of, your suffering is that your desires make you think only of the joy that you can have now, and not of the pain that you’ll face tomorrow because of them; they make you think only of the temporary and not of the permanent; they make you think only of yourself and not of the world around you.

To overcome your suffering, you must uproot the very seeds of all these desires so that they are never born again.

Karma yoga is one of the main paths of yoga that a practitioner can follow. The name comes from the Sanskrit term meaning “action” or “deed.” Therefore, it is the path of action, or selfless service towards others. It is considered by some that practicing karma yoga is the most effective way to develop spiritually.

Karma yoga is an ancient concept. The path of karma yoga is described in the Hindu sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita. It is also taught by zen teachers.

The intention when practicing karma yoga is to give selflessly for the good of others without thought of one’s self or attachment to the results of one’s actions. Acting in this way is considered the right way to approach service and it is said to purify the mind.

Karma yoga is relevant to all yogis because, to some extent, everyone must undertake some actions during their lifetime. By practicing karma yoga, all of these actions, even the most mundane, can become part of one’s spiritual path. Practicing karma yoga also means to fully accept one’s dharma, or life’s duty, and to let go of selfish desires. In doing so, one sublimates the ego.

Volunteering one’s time and effort is often used as an example of karma yoga, but, actually, all of the actions one undertakes can be karma yoga. It is considered the attitude to the action, rather than the action itself, which makes something karma yoga. This means acting with the right motives, in the right way, to the best of one’s ability, but surrendering attachment to the outcome. Some teachings recommend using chanting and mantras before and during the actions in order to develop the right mindset and approach to giving selflessly during one’s service.

1. Sanchitta

This is accumulated past actions or karmas waiting to come to fruition. Sanchitta is the storehouse of every action you have ever done, in all the lifetimes you have ever lived. These are all of the unresolved past actions waiting to reach resolution.

2. Parabda

This is the present action: what you are doing now, in this lifetime and its result.

3. Agami

Future actions that result from your present actions are called agami karma. As you attempt to resolve past karma, you unavoidably create new karmas that you may or may not be able to resolve in your present life. If you don’t resolve them now, they will go into the storehouse to be resolved in a future life.

Today I want us to focus on Parabda karma. What are the present actions of how you move, breath, walk, talk, think impacting the next present moment? In other words, what are you doing today that demonstrates you are taking 100% responsibility for your life?

Proactive

Reactive Compliance: Measuring Activity

Many E&C programs, particularly those focused on Reactive Compliance, measure activity metrics, such as:

• Trainings Completed
• Policies Attested
• Cases Reported
• Disclosures offered

These activity metrics provide no insight into the effectiveness of the E&C program. A lot of these companies measuring these types of KPIs are primarily focused on defensive action: the annual Code of Conduct attestation and Code of Conduct Trainings are prime examples of a regulatory defense perspective.

Proactive Ethics: Measuring Effectiveness

In comparison to this we have seen wickedly effective E&C programs measure:

• Employee Engagement
• Ratio – Open Door vs Web/Call Centre
• Ratio – Anonymous vs Disclosed
• Root Cause Analysis
• Sentiment Analysis
• Benchmarking (Internal & External)

Personal ethics is the code of ethical guidelines that guide you in your personal and professional life. They often develop from your core values and work ethic into actionable goals used in a variety of challenging situations. Your personal ethics can, and likely will, contain common ethical guidelines that other people share, but they will vary in their level of importance and how to maintain them.

Some common personal ethics include:

• Integrity
• Selflessness
• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Equality and fairness
• Empathy and respect
• Self-respect

Personal ethics are moral guidelines that can help you through tough situations and make the best decisions. You are likely to use your personal ethics to develop your career and handle many different workplace scenarios. You can develop a clear and effective personal ethics statement that outlines the values you practice in professional settings. In this article, we discuss what personal ethics is, describe how to write a statement and provide a sample to help you craft your own.

What are personal ethics?

Personal ethics is the code of ethical guidelines that guide you in your personal and professional life. They often develop from your core values and work ethic into actionable goals used in a variety of challenging situations. Your personal ethics can, and likely will, contain common ethical guidelines that other people share, but they will vary in their level of importance and how to maintain them.

Some common personal ethics include:

• Integrity
• Selflessness
• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Equality and fairness
• Empathy and respect
• Self-respect

Personal ethics statement

A personal ethics statement is a written declaration of your closely held ethical principles.

Personal ethics statements can be developed for several reasons, including:

College applications: Many colleges are asking for written personal ethics statements from applicants to better understand the qualities and characteristics of prospective students. These statements can help students stand out from the other applicants when their personal ethics align with that of the university or college. Plus, many colleges are making it a requirement in the application process so they can take a closer look at behavior and motivations.

Job applications: Some companies are also asking for personal ethics statements because jobs are becoming more competitive. Personal ethics statements can be a part of the process for any job, but it is most common for leadership positions. Companies frequently look to improve and shape the quality of leadership within they have, which results in asking candidates to detail their personal ethics and apply them to their work and leadership potential.

Performance evaluations: Companies also ask for personal ethics statements at performance reviews to deeply analyze employees’ actions and how they implement the company’s—and their own ethics while on the job. These statements can be very telling since they show whether an employee understands the ethical implications of their actions and are working toward better alignment with the company’s values.

Personal ethics are moral guidelines that can help you through tough situations and make the best decisions. You are likely to use your personal ethics to develop your career and handle many different workplace scenarios. You can develop a clear and effective personal ethics statement that outlines the values you practice in professional settings. In this article, we discuss what personal ethics is, describe how to write a statement and provide a sample to help you craft your own.

Benefits of having a personal ethics statement

There are many benefits to having a personal ethics statement both for your career. Defining your personal ethics makes it easier to talk about in a well-thought-out manner, which may improve your performance in an interview. Personal ethics statements also:

Help you understand your priorities. Having a clear understanding of what matters most to you can assist you in advancing your career. Defining your personal ethics statement can help you understand your priorities. If you prioritize putting other people’s needs first, then you are more likely to be happy in a job where you help people. If you prioritize doing a good job and being highly productive, then you may make a good business leader. These differences in your priorities can help you determine what type of job is best for you and what jobs you should avoid because of conflicts with your personal ethics.

Make decisions easier. Alongside clarifying your priorities, having a personal ethics statement can also make decisions easier. There are many situations where you will need to decide on the right course of action. This is especially true if you lead a team or are a high-level executive in your company. Having a list of criteria can make weighing your options easier.

Improve goal-setting. Once you know what you will and won’t focus on, you can use your personal ethics statement to set goals for your development. You can identify which values matter most to you and identify opportunities and future steps you should pursue.

Refine your leadership style. Creating a personal ethics statement is an effective way to help advance your career, especially when applying to a leadership position or a position that requires a strong set of personal ethics. Knowing what you value and what you stand for can help you decide on a leadership style that enables you to lead teams to progress and success.

The benefits of a happy staff are obvious and self-evident. Aside from the numerous studies that link employee happiness to greater productivity in the workplace a fact that any disgruntled employee could have told you for free an unhappy workforce simply makes for a miserable environment.

While misery may love company, companies do not reciprocate the feeling. A despondent staff can be exhausting to interact with and low energy in their output.

Existential appeasement

Clear objectives and vision for business: While in a perfect world everyone would work to his or her fullest capabilities everyday, life does not work this way. Often, the eternal recurrence of day-in day-out repetition traps employees in a Kafkaesque nightmare of meaningless drudgery.

Psychologists will tell you that well-defined goals engender a more disciplined work ethic. Defined goals provide employees with a sense of purpose and allow them to understand how their work contributes to the final product or service.

Work without context feels aimless and ultimately alienates the individual from the team and vision they should feel proud to be part of.

Transparency: Just as you should be upfront about the goals and vision of the company, you should also be transparent about the state of the company. According to an employee survey from TinyPulse, transparency is the “No. 1 contributor to employee happiness…”

Stressing over rumors of layoffs or fears of economic downturn only serve to disrupt an employee’s focus. Even if the only news you have to share is bad news, be honest. The result will be much better than the anxiety and passive aggression likely to arise from an uninformed and frightened staff.

Help employees define their professional narrative: Given the high mobility of younger employees, jumping from company to company, mentorship might seem like a relic of the distant past, but this is not true. If you work to build your employees, they will work harder for you. Loyalty breeds loyalty.

Help your employees see how the work they do benefits them. Whether this means asking them about their five-year plan over lunch or discussing with them possible next steps after they out-grow their current role, these discussions will alleviate any doubt about the meaning of their work in their own lives and the purpose they should feel doing it.

Flexibility

Allow employees to make their own schedule: The monotony of the 9 to 5 workday is unnecessary and old fashioned. Allowing your employees to make their own hours, and judging them not by time served but by productivity, will give your employees a rewarding sense of freedom.

Many progressive companies, such as Netflix, have adopted make your own schedule policies and research shows that allowing employees to do so increases productivity.

Work from home option: With most office jobs being computer-based nowadays, offering a work from home option to your employees is a great way to boost happiness. The trick here is to make sure that all employees have the same benefit, as those who do not receive the option to work from home are sure to become disgruntled.

Also, keeping it an option is best, as some people (likely more extroverted people) will not like the isolation of working from home, while others (likely more introverted people) will thrive outside the office.

It’s the little things.

Cut back on meetings: While meetings are a vital part of any organization facilitating communication and a free exchange of ideas too many meetings, or meetings without structure, can bog down the workday and waste time.

The good news is that keeping your employees happy is not an impossible feat. Aside from the common sense things, like growth opportunities, good benefits, clear communication and recognizing employee success, their are a few other moves you can make to keep your employees smiling and working hard.

1. Put it in writing

A handwritten thank-you to your direct reports, colleagues or boss can be more meaningful than an email. Such an effort requires some stationery, a little extra time to craft and deliver, but is often appreciated by the recipient. Employers need to promote a positive culture that includes recognition and feeling appreciated to attract and retain great people.

2. Conduct a teambuilding event

It could be a friendly Academy Awards or March Madness competition, an off-site volunteer event, or ropes course. Such activities can help staff learn more about their coworkers and boost morale in the workplace. Make sure it’s presented as optional or that there’s something for everyone; not everyone may be a movie buff or sports fan.

3. Have a party

Celebrating coworkers’ milestones such as birthdays, anniversaries, baby showers or good work can build comradery and bring employees together, especially if it’s for a good cause. Be clear that contributions are voluntary, and remember that happiness comes from more than just a free lunch or annual holiday party. If people don’t feel valued by your firm, these perks won’t make much of a difference.

“The key for managers is to express gratitude and to be really specific about the particular effort the employee made,” Carter says, “because that’s when people feel seen and recognized.”

4. Ask for inspiration

There’s no secret ingredient to increasing happiness levels in the office. What works for a small CPA firm might not fly at a larger organization. Sure, you have to pay people well, but creating a great place to work where employees have pride in what they do begins with you.

Unless you’re a mind reader, you’ll never know what instills pride and motivation in your employees, until you ask. Then, follow through. Follow-up on that feedback and empower your employees to create a better workplace.

5. Give them a sense of empowerment

Engaging your staff by giving them a chance to make decisions on their own, or with minimal direction, improves workplace happiness by making them feel more valued. Let them flex their creative muscles and influence important decisions in their jobs.

The dictionary definition of humility says: “The quality or condition of being humble; modest opinion or estimate of one’s own importance, rank, etc.”

Humility is considered a state of being, highlighted by your behavior and approach to things. It’s also considered one of the virtues of the human condition, along with kindness, patience, diligence, charity, temperance and chastity.

Humility is often thought to occur in the absence of pride. To C.S. Lewis, pride was about competition and therefore not a virtue. Pride manifests in people thinking they are “cleverer” or “richer”, for instance.

On the other hand, in the absence of pride, you find humility, which sees no need for competition. In humility, you are nothing more and nothing less than the other people around you.

In essence, humility is not about hiding away or about becoming a ‘wallflower’, but it is about the realization your abilities and actions are not better or less. Humility doesn’t require the ranking of things, but it calls for the understanding of the true value or worth of things.

One important point about humility is how it can’t be faked. But this doesn’t mean humility is difficult; in fact, it’s one of the simplest things in the world. But the more you start thinking about how to be more humble, the harder you make it for yourself to actually be humble.

Instead of focusing on the humility within you, you should pay more attention to celebrating the achievements of others. It is by acknowledging others and understanding the universal values we all share that you start becoming more humble. In a way, understanding the vastness of the world around us can make us realize our own value and the humility we should feel.

Humility is the quality of being humble. Dictionary definitions accentuate humility as a low self-regard and sense of unworthiness. In a religious context humility can mean a recognition of self in relation to a deity (i.e. God) or deities, and subsequent submission to said deity as a member of that religion. Outside of a religious context, humility is defined as being “unselved”, a liberation from consciousness of self, a form of temperance that is neither having pride (or haughtiness) nor indulging in self-deprecation.

Humility is an outward expression of an appropriate inner, or self regard, and is contrasted with humiliation which is an imposition, often external, of shame upon a person. Humility may be misappropriated as ability to suffer humiliation through self-denouncements which in itself remains focused on self rather than low self-focus.

Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue which centers on low self-preoccupation, or unwillingness to put oneself forward, so it is in many religious and philosophical traditions, it contrasts with narcissism, hubris and other forms of pride and is an idealistic and rare intrinsic construct that has an extrinsic side.

Humility and leadership

Recent research suggests that humility is a quality of certain types of leaders. For example, Jim Collins and his colleagues found that a certain type of leader, whom they term “level 5”, possesses humility and fierce resolve. Humility is being studied as a trait that can enhance leadership effectiveness. The research suggests that humility is multi-dimensional and includes self-understanding and awareness, openness, and perspective taking.

Financial managers must have the skills to handle large sums of other peoples’ money, but skill alone isn’t enough. The potential for financial managers to line their own pockets or ruin a client or company through bad judgment is immense. It’s essential to have a code of ethics in finance and to live up to those principles every day.

Financial managers shouldn’t see the code as setting a limit on ethical behavior: Tick off all the boxes, and you’re good. Having ethics in finance means doing the right thing, even in situations that aren’t covered on the list. If in doubt, find someone with the standing to give you ethical guidance.

Conflicts of Interest

Underlying the role of ethics in financial management is a fiduciary duty. Managers must act in the interests of their clients and employers, not their own. If there’s a conflict of interest where you can enrich yourself while harming a client, you must side with the client.

Bernie Madoff, for example, served as both a broker for his clients and a custodian for their money. With both roles combined, there was no independent auditing of his operations, which made it easier to defraud his clients of millions.

That’s why establishing internal controls is essential. When the risk of exposure is high, it’s less tempting to steal.

Security and Information

In the networked 21st century, ethical conduct includes how you handle and secure information. The security breach at the Equifax credit bureau, for example, may have affected confidential credit and personal data belonging to 143 million Americans. Strategic CFO magazine suggests that a proper code of ethics could have led to better protection for people’s data and more transparency after the breach occurred.

Reputation and Ethics in Finance

Another role of ethics in financial management is to guard your and your employer’s reputation. If you act ethically, you’re in the clear. However, cross the lines, and you can destroy your company’s good name as well as your own.

Some regulators and lawmakers assumed the risk of scandal and loss of reputation were sufficient to discourage financial managers from acting unethically. Repeated financial mismanagement cases in the 21st century have shown that the largest finance companies can sail through a scandal with no loss of business.

Some industry analysts say tighter regulation is necessary because ethics in finance can’t withstand temptation.

Ethics in Finance vs. Rewards

One problem with living up to a code of ethics in finance is that the system sometimes rewards unethical behavior. If an organization rewards financial manager for making decisions that benefit the company, not the clients, some financial managers will stumble.

Wells Fargo, for example, wound up in trouble when it turned out employees had opened accounts without customers’ permission to meet sales targets. In the banking industry, misselling to customers is a serious breach of ethics. If the rewards system prioritizes targets over ethics, it’s too tempting for some to pass up.

Transparency

Financial documents reflect a company’s performance relative to its peers, and its internal strengths and weaknesses. Regulatory agencies require publicly traded companies to submit periodic financial statements and make full disclosures of material information. A change in the senior executive ranks, buyout offers, loss or win of a major contract and new product launches are examples of material information. Transparency also means explaining financial information clearly, especially for those who aren’t familiar with the company’s operations. Financial managers should not hide, obscure or otherwise render relevant financial information impossible for ordinary shareholders to understand.

Ethical violations

The most frequently occurring ethical violations in finance relate to insider trading, stakeholder interest versus stockholder interest, investment management, and campaign financing. Businesses in general and financial markets in particular are replete with examples of violations of trust and loyalty in both public and private dealings. Fraudulent financial dealings, influence peddling and corruption in governments, brokers not maintaining proper records of customer trading, cheating customers of their trading profits, unauthorized transactions, insider trading, misuse of customer funds for personal gain, mis-pricing customer trades, and corruption and larceny in banking have become common occurrences.

Insider trading is perhaps one of the most publicized unethical behaviors by traders. Insider trading refers to trading in the securities of a company to take advantage of material “inside” information about the company that is not available to the public. Such a trade is motivated by the possibility of generating extraordinary gain with the help of nonpublic information (information not yet made public). It gives the trader an unfair advantage over other traders in the same security. Insider trading was legal in some European countries until recently. In the United States, the 1984 Trading Sanctions Act made it illegal to trade in a security while in the possession of material non-public information. The law applies to both the insiders, who have access to nonpublic information, and the people with whom they share such information.

Professional ethics encompass the personal and corporate standards of behavior expected by professionals.

The word professionalism originally applied to vows of a religious order. By at least the year 1675, the term had seen secular application and was applied to the three learned professions: Divinity, Law, and Medicine. The term professionalism was also used for the military profession around this same time.

Professionals and those working in acknowledged professions exercise specialist knowledge and skill. How the use of this knowledge should be governed when providing a service to the public can be considered a moral issue and is termed professional ethics.

It is capable of making judgments, applying their skills, and reaching informed decisions in situations that the general public cannot because they have not attained the necessary knowledge and skills. One of the earliest examples of professional ethics is the Hippocratic oath to which medical doctors still adhere to this day.

Components

Some professional organizations may define their ethical approach in terms of a number of discrete components. Typically these include Honesty, Trustworthiness, Transparency, Accountability, Confidentiality, Objectivity, Respect, Obedience to the law, and Loyalty.

Implementation

Most professionals have internally enforced codes of practice that members of the profession must follow to prevent exploitation of the client and to preserve the integrity and reputation of the profession. This is not only for the benefit of the client but also for the benefit of those belonging to that profession. Disciplinary codes allow the profession to define a standard of conduct and ensure that individual practitioners meet this standard, by disciplining them from the professional body if they do not practice accordingly. This allows those professionals who act with a conscience to practice in the knowledge that they will not be undermined commercially by those who have fewer ethical qualms. It also maintains the public’s trust in the profession, encouraging the public to continue seeking their services.

Internal regulation

In cases where professional bodies regulate their own ethics, there are possibilities for such bodies to become self-serving and fail to follow their own ethical code when dealing with renegade members. This is particularly true of professions in which they have almost a complete monopoly on a particular area of knowledge. For example, until recently, the English courts deferred to the professional consensus on matters relating to their practice that lay outside case law and legislation.

Statutory regulation

In many countries there is some statutory regulation of professional ethical standards such as the statutory bodies that regulate nursing and midwifery in England and Wales. Failure to comply with these standards can thus become a matter for the courts.