Taking Business Ethics to the Heart of our 100,000+ Employees
How would you Introduce Business Ethics to your Employees?
Subcategory: Staff Development
Overview
How to inspire all employees on a topic which by nature is rules based and little entertaining? How to create ownership among line managers? A creative communications campaign and business program bringing the topics of compliance close to the heart of our people. The global campaign ‘doing business with integrity’ created a real buzz throughout the organization. Over 45.000 employees joined the dialogues on integrity. Integrity was trending topic on the internal social media. 96% of Philips employees found campaign helpful, 95% felt engaged and 84% will return to topic.
Impact
How to inspire all employees on a topic which by nature is rules based and little entertaining? How to create ownership at line management level to actively manage our changing risk profile? The global campaign ‘doing business with integrity’ created a buzz through the organization. Employees started to realize that good business conduct is our joint responsibility. We are all confronted with ethical dilemmas and need to know what to do in case of doubt, regardless of our role.
Already after 4 weeks, 45,000 employees joined the dialogues on integrity. Integrity was trending topic on our internal social media.
Innovation
Responsible business conduct requires engagement and ownership at all functional levels: from senior management to factory workers. But how do you touch the hearts and minds of all employees worldwide in a creative and unconventional way, while respecting the different knowledge levels, educational levels, cultural diversity and professional roles?
The campaign made people realize that we are all confronted with ethical dilemmas and making the right choices isn’t always straightforward. Employees were challenged to experiment with applying the integrity principles and think/talk about the consequences[/one_half_last]
Insight
Engaging line management was the key to our success. Through the campaign we gave managers the mandate to own and drive the topic of integrity and formalized their role to ensure all their employees felt supported to live up to our integrity standards. This put an additional challenge to the communications campaign.
It required a well thought through planning and cascade of our communications, endorsement of senior management and involvement of line managers already in an early stage of the campaign.
Inspiration
Delivering with integrity is essential to our company success and a fundamental part of our culture. However, making the right decisions is not always straightforward. Employees need to continuously challenge the status quo and dare to hold each other accountable, even if it may not contribute to our short term business success.
Therefore it is essential that employees feel comfortable to discuss any dilemma and know what to do in case of doubt. This ethics campaign was designed to support leaders in coaching their team and driving the dialogue on this crucial topic[/one_half_last]