Global Public Articles

Many small businesses are saddled with a very familiar problem. How do you find good employees? For business this seems to be an age old question. A question that seems to have a great deal of answers but no real solutions.

Hiring a good employee can be a hit or miss proposition. Hopefully though once you have gained some experience and learned from your mistakes your percentage of good hires will rise. But because good hires are so hard to find you must keep an eye out for unethical behavior from your employees.

Many small businesses though are still going to be stuck with an unfortunately large number of employees they’d rather do without. Many of these small businesses are ones that rely on manual labor to get the job done.

The reason why is fairly simple. Skilled professions typically require some sort of education. Whether it’s a formal education requiring a college degree or a more hands on education such as an apprenticeship with a business.

So what exactly does this difference mean when the question of ethics comes up? Simply put getting an education in a particular field requires commitment. And people that make such commitments are more likely to value the rewards they earn.

With education can come a better paying job and maybe what they consider a better life. Now apply that fact to the workplace.

An employee that has made that commitment to improving their life now has something to lose. And because they value what they have earned and they do not want to risk it they are more conscious about acting ethically in their workplace. They consider the consequences of doing something stupid.

Now let’s look at the other end of the spectrum. A laborer working for a small business is not looking at having a long term career with the company. More than likely it’s just another job to them.

It’s possible they have spent some time at a particular company and they know the ins and outs of it. And because they are familiar with the workings of the business they know what they can and cannot get away with. This provides temptation.

Now just because someone doesn’t have a more formal education it doesn’t mean they are bad people and are out to steal the company blind. But such a person does have less to lose and they might be more willing to give in to their temptations even though they know better.

If their own moral code of right and wrong is somewhat less than solid then they may not really consider the consequences of acting inappropriately. This is where their ethics will be tested each day.

The solution for someone in this situation is simple. You need to make them feel that they are a part of the team. People want to belong to something. They need to feel that their contributions no matter what they are are valued.

Once again a person needs to feel they have something to lose if they are to value they have. And you are in a position to provide that value to them. If a person has a reason to think twice before they do something they are more likely to going to act in an ethical manner.

Cash Miller is an expert in small business affairs. To receive more tips that can help your business to succeed you can sign up for his FREE Newsletter. Once you’ve signed up your going to receive access to 5 FREE E-Books that can help your business prosper. And as a Bonus FREE Newsletter Members can expect to receive an additional FREE E-Book each week.

In life, “Truth matters”, to quote one of my favorite leaders ever, a former General Counsel with whom I worked. If you are like most people and want to sleep well at night, stay off the slippery slope. When an alarm bell rings in your mind, listen to it! It probably sounded off for a reason. Pausing to consider why the alarm went off ensures you will take time to reconsider the situation from an ethical point of view.

Definitions of fraud, describing various kinds of theft, understanding what constitutes a conflict of interest all serve to help you consciously consider ethical choices. But having this knowledge isn’t enough. You also need to have an instinct for what is right and what is wrong. If you ever have that niggling sense that something isn’t right, stop and ask someone you trust and admire to help you think through the situation.

The risky thing is to take action without really thinking about the variety of choices you are faced with on a daily basis. Sometimes, you may not even realize that your choice has an ethical side to it. You may simply see it as what is easiest for you, or what causes you the least conflict, or helps a situation keep moving forward. However, putting on ethical lenses could prevent a mis-step that you would later regret. The examples in previous articles may serve to illustrate just how easy it is to start down the wrong road without even knowing it.

While you may not be at risk of committing even a slight ethical transgression, it is amply clear from the debacle on Wall Street in the fall of 2008 that your simple ethical decisions can affect more people than you’d ever imagine. For example, you can blame the predatory lenders, or you can blame the dangerously innocent borrower, or both. Which ever way you look at it . . that the Wall Street mess was deliberately engineered by a variety of business, or that the whole mess is an example of what can go wrong unintentionally, the fact of the matter is that we all suffered. If people in any part of the equation had slowed down to consider whether what they did was right, not just was it possible, we might not find ourselves in the financial crises we are in today.

I recently finished reading Extraordinary Circumstances: The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower by Cynthia Cooper, formerly of WorldCom. This woman, whom I was privileged to hear speak recently, is the heroine who blew the whistle on the WorldCom fraud. She recounts that her strength to blow the whistle on the huge Wall Street darling company came from lessons from her child hood. Specifically, she relates that her parents told her, “Don’t ever let yourself be bullied”, and “Think of the consequences of your actions.”

Three really simple rules can help you negotiate the sometimes treacherous times life thows at us. Follow them, and you should be in good shape:
1. Rule Number One: Don’t lie.
2. Rule Number Two: Don’t cheat.
3. Rule Number Three: Don’t steal.

I wish us all the strength to do in all circumstances what we know to be right.

Sally Rhys, MS, coaches and consults on business ethics. As the former Director, Ethics and Compliance at a $1.5B publicly traded company, her expertise will help you increase both your business knowledge and professionalism. Contact her at http://www.coachingforperspective.com

Too many offers of guaranteed income or of projected income can be found online these days. When someone is scouring the internet for job announcements or possibly with the intent of starting a business, the number of business opportunities that pop up is growing quite large. These offers are sometimes not in compliance with business opportunity law specifications. How does one know if that advertisement offering easy income or a product that sells itself is in compliance with the local business opportunity law? A look into state law will provide the answers.

Not A Federal Issue

Business opportunity laws are not made at the national level, currently some states have a business law, and some states do not. Of the states that do have such a statute, the different forms that the law takes are variations on a theme. In general, a business opportunity law that exist is set up to protect people who buy into money making opportunities whether these opportunities turn out to be real money makers or if they are simply scams.

All business opportunities fall under the statute of a law if there is such a law in the state where one resides. It does not matter if you are a legitimate business or are scamming people into selling a product for you. All business opportunities fall under the realm of the law, so anyone thinking of responding to a business opportunity should check the state laws before agreeing to anything.

What the Law Says

Although the particularities of a states business opportunity law vary, the essential piece of the law is that it requires those making an offer of a business opportunity to release a disclosure statement to prospective business partners. In some states, this disclosure statement has to be reviewed by an official before it is allowed to be used as a disclosure statement for a business opportunity. In other states, the contents of the disclosure are discretionary, the business opportunity law simply states that the partner offering a business opportunity must have a disclosure statement to offer prospective partners.

In the disclosure statement, essential information should be found. For example, the number of business partners that the offering individual has held during the last three years, and a history of the offering persons arbitration, litigation and financial history. All of these are considered information that the prospective business partner has the right to have. Of course, anything disclosed in the disclosure statement must be true, so creating a disclosure statement that is full of lies does not make a business compliant with business opportunity law.

The law is designed to give those buying into a business a critical view of what it is that they are buying into. One should have the chance of making an informed decision about such a business opportunity, instead of being victim to a bunch of slogans like guaranteed to sell itself and the like. Business opportunity law requires the offering party to offer real numbers instead of slogans. Take a look at the disclosure statement and only then decide if the business opportunity is legitimate.

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You have probably heard of examples of behavior at work that seem unbelievable. Imagine a case where an employee in a landscaping business is found to have been ordering extra plants and other supplies from a vendor to use at their home and their families’ homes. You think to yourself, and maybe have conversations with co-workers, “WHAT was she thinking?” It is an interesting question. Based on thought leaders, my own experience, and research results I offer the following to try to explain the seemingly inexplicable.

1. “I deserve some slack”. This form of entitlement thinking is the “Hey, I’ve worked here for 13 years;I deserve some special consideration, after the way they have treated me!”

In this “stinking thinking” pattern, a person believes that he or she is due something extra. Maybe the person has felt underappreciated over time, or believes their compensation level is inadequate. Whatever the case, they convince themselves that it is okay for them to take something that is not theirs in order to make up for a slight they believe they have suffered.

2. “It isn’t really much.” A daisy here, a trowel there . . what is the difference? It does make a difference if the, “Oops, I accidentally took this trowel home” becomes, “Hey, I think I’ll re-landscape my yard.”

Whether it seems like it at the time or not, taking something that is not yours is theft. The concept of theft extends to theft of time. Time spent at work on personal tasks such as personal phone calls, e-mail and errands beyond the inconsequential is a form of theft. Would you want your child’s teacher to spend classroom time on personal chores?

3. “I’ll pay it back later.” This stinking thinking can have to do with cash, such as the petty cash drawer or accounting entries, or time.

Imagine that someone arrives at work and discovers that they don’t have any cash in their wallet because they forgot to go to the bank last night what with going to the grocery store, picking up the kids, and polishing off some homework for night school. The employee figures that they will just take a few bucks from the petty cash drawer to cover lunch from the lunch cart, and put back what they borrow tomorrow. Well, tomorrow never comes and the cash is never replaced. The intent is good, but the follow-up never happens.

4. “I’ll never get caught!” The examples above are those of people who unintentionally take the first step on the slippery slope. This example is different. It is for the person who knows at the time that what they are about to do is wrong. They just figure that they are so smart that the world won’t catch on to them. Well, sometimes they are right and sometimes they are wrong.

Believing you will never get caught is the first step in a web of deceit, and there isn’t an easy way back. If you or someone you know has such an idea, squelch it from the beginning. The idea can’t be good for you.

While you may not see yourself falling into any of these stinking thinking scenarios, is it exactly how the wrong things start. If you hear any of these phrases at your work place, stop the thinking it its tracks and get back on the ethical plane.

Sally Rhys, MS, coaches and consults on business ethics. As the former Director, Ethics and Compliance at a $1.5B publicly traded company, her expertise will help you increase both your business knowledge and professionalism. Contact her at http://www.coachingforperspective.com

Business ethics is an interesting branch of business theory, primarily because of the fact that they are inherently interesting in a market economy. People tend to be extremely distrustful of corporations in market economies and the bigger they are, the worse that problem of trust usually gets. Business ethics therefore are politically charged in many different circumstances and that in turn serves to make them interesting. Aside from this academic interest however, business ethics are also important for a company and its success. Here are some ways in which this is true.

Public Image

It is impossible to discuss business ethics as a branch of academia without taking a look at the relationship between business ethics and public image. Each corporation has a particular public image, which represents the way in which the public views the corporation. Wal-Mart, for example, has a terrible public image. Toyota, on the other hand, has a very positive one. These public images are the result of a number of different things, but they are primarily the result of the way in which a corporation acts with respect to the different things around it.

A corporation’s environmental policy, the way they treat their employees and the way they treat the communities they exist in are all part of their overall behavior and this in turn is the principle factor in determining their public image. As proof of this, you will notice that even though Wal-Mart makes products that have a decent quality and an extremely low price, they still have a negative public image.

Since public image is largely a result of company behavior, business ethics play a large role in determining public image since they determine behavior. And public image is important to success in most cases, which is one of the reasons as to why business ethics are important to a company’s overall success.

Investment

Another reason that business ethics are important is the relationship they have to investment. When a person or an entity is considering investment in a particular stock, there are a number of things they take into account. Aside from the quantitative factors surrounding a company’s profit margin a future prospects, consideration is also given to a particular company from the point of view of the qualitative aspects such as their public image and the products that they happen to sell. All of these things are taken into account before the final investment is made.

Therefore, a company that would like to encourage extra investment is a company that has a strong sense of business ethics. Part of business ethics is responsibility to the investor and for that reason companies with strong reputations in the field of ethical business behavior are also companies that tend to attract more investment from people that are new into the market. Investment is most definitely important to success.

Partnerships

In the business world, joint ventures happen all the time. They happen all the time because they are ultimately of great importance to the bottom lines of businesses. A business can be made or broken on just one joint venture and part of the reason that joint ventures are successful is that they combine the forces of two extremely powerful companies on occasion.

If you want your company to do well in joint ventures, then you need to have good partners. The only way to get good partners is to have a good reputation both in terms of a track record and in terms of your business overall. And of course, the best way to get a good reputation is to ensure that your company has a strong tradition of ethical business behavior.

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