Grow ethically: Ensure your company is maintaining moral responsibility

Business is one of the most challenging ways to earn money. As a brand, you’re in a state of being noticed and judged continuously. Whether you’re a shampoo brand, an Over The Top (OTT) platform, an IT company, or anything that is a result of entrepreneurship, the fate of your company and, hence, your future, lies in the hands of your customers.

There are several aspects that a brand is judged on. Apart from the materialistic aspects, a brand’s image is also affected by its work culture and the ethics that it showcases.

In fact, according to a study by Environics International, in which 25,000 people were interviewed, more than 49 percent said that it is the brand’s social performance that they pay attention to. They even said that to protest against the wrong social behavior of a brand, they often boycott products from the brand.

Therefore, following certain ethics can help a brand create a better image for their employees and customers, which in turn reflects on their outcomes.

What basic ethics need to be followed?

1. Keep your employees happy. Your employees are the ones that work day and night for you, and are responsible for a lot of your success. By giving your staff the salaries, and other incentives, that they deserve, you can keep them motivated to perform better.

2. Honesty. Have fair deals with your suppliers and charge your customers reasonably. Any dishonesty can be easily noticed by your customers and business partners, thereby giving your brand a bad name.

3. Be as eco-friendly as you can. As a brand, you should always be careful and keep checking if your company’s actions are causing any ill effects to the environment, and take essential steps to curb them if they do.

4. Your products must speak for you. Having a good advertising scheme and poor product quality will not take very far. Therefore, you must never cheat on customers with the services you provide.

How do you execute these ethics and morals?

1. Your employees learn from you and what they see in their work environment. If you want them to be ethical and uphold moral values, you must set examples for them by the way you work.
2. Apart from encouraging your employees to put in their 100 percent for the company, encourage them to also grow on a personal level.
3. Not everybody realizes the wrong they might commit. You must educate your employees about the set of ethics you follow, and ensure they follow them. This can be done via sessions.
4. Teach your employees how to deal with customers. If they are lenient with a customer based on their loyalty, they must be appreciated for it. Showing the customer that there is a two-way relationship based on trust is so important.
5. Your employees should feel free to talk to you about any kind of doubts and concerns regarding ethics, or a moral dilemma that they may have.

How do you check the ethical behavior of your employees and workforce?

You can carry out ethical sourcing audits to ensure that your workforce upholds the values and ethics that you want your brand to be known for. The audits are carried out by the suppliers. They are made to undergo certain assessments, and if there is any kind of issue, the company is given some time to solve it, after which it is supposed to report back.

The audit analyzes the work environment and culture of a firm or an organization, based on some qualitative and subjective factors. It first considers a list of ethics and ethical issues, and then based on its assessments, it concludes where a company stands and what measures need to be taken to resolve these issues.

Bottom line

One of the most important factors that can improve an organization’s performance is the ethics it works on. Several important factors that a company needs to focus on are keeping its employees happy, being as eco-friendly as they can, carrying out honest deals with their suppliers, and being honest with the services that they offer to their customers.

To execute these values, a company should set examples before their employees by the way they work and give them the freedom to consult the authorities whenever in a state of doubt. Carrying out ethical sourcing audits is another great way to ensure that the company is upholding the values it is known for.

Remember that your branding is only as good as the perception that your existing and potential customers have of you. Therefore, following the tips mentioned above can go a long way in ensuring that you maintain both your moral responsibility and your brand reputation.