What ethical principles guide you in your professional approach to work?

At work, ethical behavior is the legal and moral code guiding employee behavior. Being a professional requires more than wearing a nice suit. It requires ethical behavior that drives interactions with other employees, customers and leadership. It also guides how someone performs her job. Ethical behavior guides whether someone will perform minor infractions if she feels no one is watching. Business leaders need to set clear guidelines for ethical behavior in the workplace and to consistently train employees on working according to those expectations.

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Define Ethical Behavior
Importance of Ethical Behavior
Examples of Professional Behavior
What are professional ethical principles?
What are the 5 basic principles in professional ethics?
What are the 4 four principles that an ethical person must show in a workplace?
What ethical principle in life that you might use as your guiding principle in your future business?

Define Ethical Behavior

Professionalism and ethics in the workplace are the guiding principles that an individual or the company has established. Generally, a company sets forth a minimum standard of ethics and expectations, even though there are employees who may have a higher personal set of ethics. Those who don't follow the ethics rules at work are subject to disciplinary action, possibly even firing.

As with all ethics guidelines, these rules at work consider what is best for all involved. That includes the employer, the employee, co-workers and the public. An employee handbook may list specific behavior expectations but many components of ethics are guided by a person's moral code. For example, an employer may not expressly state that one employee should not take credit for a project if he had nothing to do with it. This generally follows a person's moral compass, though it may become a rule if a problem permeates among employees.

Importance of Ethical Behavior

Ethical behavior in the workplace is important for many reasons. People and customers feel safe when working with a company if they know people are following morally sound guidelines. It builds the reputation of the business and doing "clean business" or keeping "customers as a priority."

Many professionals won't remain in business if the public doesn't feel that the person or the company operates ethically. Banks, financial representatives, lawyers all must follow high ethical standards. Any company taking credit card information needs to maintain strict privacy and information protection policies to get consumer confidence.

Ethics guidelines also set the tone for how companies deal with conflict. When customers complain or if a co-worker accuses another of wrong-doing, an ethical company can go to its employee handbook and follow established fair procedures to get a resolution.

Examples of Professional Behavior

There are many examples of ethical communication in the workplace. Most trustworthy and ethical behavior starts with money management. You want people in the organization who handle money and financial transactions to do so ethically. An employee skimming a quarter out of the cash register is not acting ethically, or lawfully.

Ethical communication in the workplace is another area that staff needs to be clearly trained on. An employee who is upset with a client or co-worker is not supposed to break confidentiality and spread or forward an email or gossip. Employees will follow the lead of managers if there is no set standard. If the boss comes in and makes fun of a customer or another employee, the staff will think this is okay. Ethical standards must be met to prevent potential bullying and discrimination, which leads to high turnover, high anxiety and low productivity.

Ethics extends beyond issues of right or wrong. A conscientious employee is concerned about doing his job to the best of his ability. This employee won't close the store two minutes early; she will stay 10 minutes late, if someone needs help. Employees who have high ethical standards are proactive to help solve problems with co-workers or customers. They don't pass the buck or point fingers at others; they take responsibility. Although these traits are not wholly indicative of someone's ethics, they do serve as baseline indicators for employers.

Professional ethics are principles that govern the behaviour of a person or group in a business environment. Like values, professional ethics provide rules on how a person should act towards other people and institutions in such an environment.

Note

Unlike values, professional ethics are often codified as a set of rules, which a particular group of people use.

This means that all those in a particular group will use the same professional ethics, even though their values may be unique to each person.

The Code is an example of a codified set of professional ethics for those who choose to enter the immigration advice profession.

Ethical principles

Ethical principles underpin all professional codes of conduct. Ethical principles may differ depending on the profession; for example, professional ethics that relate to medical practitioners will differ from those that relate to lawyers or real estate agents.

However, there are some universal ethical principles that apply across all professions, including:

honesty
trustworthiness
loyalty
respect for others
adherence to the law
doing good and avoiding harm to others
accountability.

Codes of conduct

Professional codes of conduct draw on these professional ethical principles as the basis for prescribing required standards of behaviour for members of a profession. They also seek to set out the expectations that the profession and society have of its members.

The intention of codes of conduct is to provide guidelines for the minimum standard of appropriate behaviour in a professional context. Codes of conduct sit alongside the general law of the land and the personal values of members of the profession.

Note

The primary value of a professional code of conduct is not as a checklist for disciplining non-conforming members, although breaches of a code of conduct usually do carry a professional disciplinary consequence.

Rather, its primary value is to act as a prompt sheet for the promotion of ethical decision-making by members of that profession.

Professional codes of conduct provide benefits to:

the public, as they build confidence in the profession’s trustworthiness
clients, as they provide greater transparency and certainty about how their affairs will be handled
members of the profession, as they provide a supporting framework for resisting pressure to act inappropriately, and for making acceptable decisions in what may be ‘grey areas’
the profession as a whole, as they provide a common understanding of acceptable practice which builds collegiality and allows for fairer disciplinary procedures
others dealing with the profession, as the profession will be seen as more reliable and easier to deal with.

Other contributors to professional ethics

Fiduciary duties

When an adviser agrees to assist a client, they agree to take on a level of responsibility for that person and their immigration matter. The client becomes dependent on the adviser in relation to that assistance. This is a fiduciary relationship between the fiduciary (the adviser) and a principal (the client). Even without a Code this fiduciary relationship means the adviser has certain obligations to their client.

Contractual obligations

When an adviser enters into a contract (or written agreement) with a client this creates legally binding obligations to perform the terms of the contract in a particular way. This includes a duty to act with diligence, due care and skill, and also implies obligations such as confidentiality and honesty, even if they are not specifically set out in the contract.

Many ethical issues are likely to stem from advisers’ relationships with clients. Most of these can be overcome by having clear terms in a written agreement about how certain matters will be dealt with, such as the sharing of confidential information, the use of interpreters, refunds and invoicing. More information on written agreements can be found in the Code of Conduct Toolkit.

Other laws

As well as New Zealand immigration legislation, advisers should also be aware of other relevant laws that seek to regulate how service providers must behave. In New Zealand this could include the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993. Advisers operating outside of New Zealand should make sure that they are familiar with any equivalent legislation that governs the behaviour of service providers there.

What are professional ethical principles?

What are the 5 basic principles in professional ethics?

It is divided into three sections, and is underpinned by the five fundamental principles of Integrity, Objectivity, Professional competence and due care, Confidentiality, and Professional behaviour.