What is ‘Workplace Ethics’?

All managers have a tendency to talk of ethics and ethical practices. Whether or not they are practiced, or for that matter whether or not they are enforced at their workplaces is a different matter.

What is understood by ethics? It is actually an offshoot of philosophy and seeks to focus on issues of principles through an arrangement of performance and conduct related principles. In other words, ethics can be termed as a procedure meant for enforcing a set of behavioural practices.

No workplace is a picnic place; on the contrary, it is the very livelihood for a large number of people and hence fulfills all requirements concerning individual realization. Therefore, ethics bestow grounds as a yardstick of living and occupation alike. Going by this logic, they keep morality going and facilitate growth; and hence cannot be ignored at any workplace. However, to adhere to them or not is an individual preference, something that cannot be thrust on people but only justified and looked forward to.

A workplace is a group of people with varying perceptions and outlooks and it is but natural that ethics there will stand watered down. But the fact is that the degree of passion, enthusiasm and ardour necessary to bring about an ethical workplace environment is immensely monumental, particularly when an organization is desired to progress in the true sense of the word.

Depending upon person to person, ethics imply guiding principles and actions that have to be pursued to achieve the eventual reality. But their adherence does usher in some element of answerability and liability to life as a whole. If that be so, ethical practices provide rationale and guidance and in the process attaches a connotation to life. Workplace ethics are a result of individual ethics that revolve around:

Sincerity: There is nothing better than being truthful, everybody says so. But very few seem to practice it. More often than not, sincerity that also entails honesty, genuineness and earnestness, is applied and gone through only if it is opportune or expedient. Perhaps this is true, however not forever. A mind that is prejudiced and narrow-minded is incapable of looking beyond and focuses on short-term advantages, resorting to untruth, if required. This is nothing but breaking and running away from reality – an act that amounts to self- deceit. But, for how long can you afford to do it? The aspects of sincerity of purpose and honesty of attitude need to be integrated in one’s disposition as also in those of newcomers in an organization because personal ethics will always vary.

Perseverance:  The fear of perseverance is more than the fear of fear itself. It tends to ambush you within yourself, depriving you of legitimacy and certainty that you ought to be pledging. At a workplace, one cannot refrain from work or promise and hence a very pledge for them serves as a big impelling factor. There is no denying the fact that perseverance has to emanate from inside, but it is also a fact that some cajoling facilitate workers to look inwards and consequently be more determined. Therefore, employees need to be helped to introspect so that they can persist with their work and bring in organizational progress.

Trustworthiness:  Devotion to one’s job together with constancy and credibility is what trustworthiness entails. As the name suggests, it puts together mutual faith and confidence amongst all employee factions; it is a trait that is most sought after in any buddy, ally or colleague. Workplace ethics also has a similar field of view. Trustworthiness and its wider meanings of honesty, dependability, reliability and integrity are traits that need to be preserved. Any stupid doing involving their sacrifice or even compromise will invariably have serious long term ramifications   

Obligations:  Each and every person has a right to freedom, life and assets. We can indulge in any activity, but it has to be regulated by a code of regulations. These regulations are ethics in their innate form. The forgoing implies doing everything in a proper way, lest monumental bedlam prevails.

            Sincerity, perseverance, trustworthiness and obligations are major contributory factors for a congenial working environment. They boost levels of enterprise erudition and business learnedness, besides dealing with crisis situations in a more proficient method. While individual ethics will always vary from individual to individual, they will invariably be of consequence in formulating ethical guidelines of any establishment.

Towards the above, the need to place every worker on to a common podium of ideology, if the requirement of ethical practices may be called so in the context of workplace imperatives, needs no emphasis. Principled or unprincipled, correct or incorrect or precise or vague are ethical queries that only the brawn of discernment and might of acuity can respond to. But, the important part of the matter is that they call for development and progression, the trigger for which to a very large extent can be ascribed to workplace ethics alone.  

Don’t let your job search collapse

In any sphere of activity, if the working methodology is contravened, everything goes to wrack and ruin - like dominoes if one amongst a chain of them is pulled out. Can you afford to flout any stage of your job search?

Any job search ought to be having the following five phases with each one of them being equally important and contingent on the others:

Preparation to sell oneself

  The success of your job search is contingent on the groundwork you do. To that extent, preparation is presumably the most significant constituent of any job hunt effort. It should include the following elements:

·   Capabilities & vulnerabilities: You need to be well aware of what you are, what you are cut out for and what you are weak at. What are your penchants? Knowing them is an extremely important facet and the earlier one gets to identify them, the better it will be for evident reasons.

·   Career roadmap:   You need to be clear about how you intend to move forward in your career. This entails also what you want to attain and at what stage in your life.

·   Probable employers:  After having done the above, you ought to be short-listing organizations that you would be willing to join. Evidently, your choice would be prompted by a host of factors, notable ones being repute, stability and prospects. Since different companies have varying workplace imperatives, you have to decide what you want in life and the degree of compromise you are willing to make.

·   Posturing for employment:  This implies putting yourself for sale. The process entails image projection so that the attention of recruiters is focused on you. On your own, you may not be able achieve much; your networking efforts will stand you in good stead.  

Persuasive cover letter

If you are confident that all your preparations are in place, the next step is to start drafting your cover letters. The secret to a good cover letter lies in ensuring the following:

·   Address:   The letter should be addressed to a person by name rather than appointment.

·   Contents:  The letter should be so drafted that the first paragraph stands out and catches the notice of the addressee. In addition, the contents should manifest buoyancy. While following the principle of brevity, all your major accomplishments as distinct from duties performed should be highlighted. In other words, make the letter acceptable at first sight itself.  

Perfect resume

A resume seeks to explain what you have done so far and how. It tells the other person about your familiarity with and understanding of various issues. It also illustrates your expertise. You should not think of yourself as more than merchandise that a willing employer would be ready to pay for; to that extent, a resume’s important attributes are:

·   Sync:  It should unambiguously be in harmony with your overall personality, aptitude and qualifications.

·   Contact details:  The resume should clearly mention your contact information; this would facilitate a prospective employer to get in touch with you at the first opportunity.

·   Expertise:   Inter alia, a resume should make your proficiency, competence, aptitude and strong-points stand out.

·   Spotlight:  Your resume should not be dwelling on your charter of duties and assigned responsibilities. On the contrary, it should be highlighting your academic and professional successes.

·   Conciseness:   If you are a fresher, a one-page resume should suffice. In respect of anybody else, not more than two pages are recommended. Remember that if it is long, chances are that the person reading it may miss out on your key attributes.

Facing the interview

You can be the most reclusive person by temperament; nevertheless the skill of faring well in an interview can come to you without difficulty. What it involves is gaining knowledge of some fundamental tenets and living out with them. A few rudimentary truths about an interview are:

·   Initial impact:  The first impression is always the last impression. The interviewer would have made a mental pronouncement about you in the initial three minutes itself; what follows subsequently is just a procedure. Inter alia, your interpersonal skills and dressing sense will always have an influence, the better they are, the better you will gel.

·   Having hold:  You ought to be trying to be in command of the pace and course of the interview. This implies that you should be making moves and not simply reacting. You should have prepared your questions well for any clarifications that you may like to seek.  

·   Objective: You should not lose sight of your aim – that you are merchandise being offered for sale. Reticence and diffidence may not pay.

Monitoring & quest

Having a timely system of follow-up is as significant and crucial as the other dominoes. Following-up and following-through comprises:

·   Responses:   You should be taking the initiative to establish contact with employers and seeking meetings or interviews. If you happen to receive messages, responding to them via post, e mail or telephone should invariably be done. Likewise, you should never falter in intimating your decision to accept or decline offers.

·   Gratitude:  Expressing thanks to any or everybody who has been of assistance is always in good taste. You never know that the same person can be of immense value subsequently.

A dedicated approach, sincerity of purpose and high degree of determination is essential to be maintained during all the five phases of a job search. Their importance as dwelt upon above notwithstanding, the fact needs to be understood that mental and physical feebleness at any stage will be a harbinger of fiasco and disappointment.  

Clutching career success

Is your career success deluding you? Have you been holding your horses for long hoping that you will no more be a dark horse in your career? Are you hopeful of your career vision proving true?

As far as career success is concerned, you invariably stand to gain if you continue endeavouring hard trying to attain it. Sitting idle and passing time hoping that will success will strike you some day or the other will serve no purpose.

How do people attain success? What are those qualities that facilitate success? Nearly all successful men and women possess extraordinary ambition and motivation. They are unusually assertive and in no doubt about themselves. And of course, they invariably have the ability to make lots and lots of money.

Rather than trying to be like successful people, we have a tendency to presuppose that they have influence exerted by people who matter. We sometimes also imagine that Lady Luck simply smiles on them by chance. The important point missed out by us is that they grappled with odds to reach wherever they reached. It is only their success that is noticed by us and we aspire to be where they are and that too immediately.

Career success kisses the feet of all those who seek it sincerely and put themselves out to achieve it. The procedure is simple and not plagued with any obscurity. What you need to do is to go along some simple actions; if you digress from them, rest assured that your wait will be longer. You can clutch career success by sticking to the following tenets:

·   Be assured that you will taste success:

Self-assurance is an extremely vital factor, though it is disregarded frequently. You need to deem that the likelihood of success coming your way is indeed very high. It is a known fact that a high degree of steadfastness with regard to objectives is the prime causative factor for career success. So the critical question is how can you boost these dispositions? The best way to do so is by an honestly reducing to writing your conception and impression of a perfect, rather ultimate career and life. You should be able to generate a portrait that can be glared at without any difficulty.

What is the image that you have created? Does it stir you up? Does it motivate you? Remember that trust and credence are attributes that are not externally impelled but are intrinsic to all individuals; and hence you will be required to excavate and bring them to light quite frequently.  

·   Get to the bottom of the truth:

The moment you gain self-assuredness, you need to support it with actuality and reality. You will need to discern definite actions that you are required to undertake to make certain that the portrait you created is infused with authenticity.

An illustration will make the matter easy to understand. Suppose you like to shift your focus to another realm altogether. Under such circumstances, what are your information requirements? Do you need to undergo an orientation programme? Will such an orientation schedule be cost-effective and more importantly, does your budget allow such an expenditure? If you mobilize your resources and invest them in your new efforts, what are the chances that your money will multiply? Or, is it that you do not bother about material assets but desire to lead a better life by all standards? Answers to all such questions will need to be pragmatically found and it will be only then that you will be fully geared up to do something.

·   Devote yourself to success:

Successful people always believe in their ambitions and aspirations. They are steadfast as far as their objectives are concerned. Assertions made by them are bold and unambiguous. Their devotion manifests their resoluteness. You need to be equally tenacious.

It is a fact that no man likes to pledge or enter into something that is binding. Therefore, it is essential that you shun all apprehensions and be responsive to all opportunities that come your way; there is no way that something superior will drift away from you. The only thing that will drift away from you will be bewilderment and uncertainty. And that will serve to impel you to work with greater enthusiasm.

·   Plan a line of action:

Your devotion now established, you need to figure out the modus operandi for attaining success. Since you have already got to the bottom of the truth and gathered lot of information in the process, guidance should come automatically to you. Whatever line of action you formulate, it should be split into smaller plans intended to be put into action in phases.

Besides the above, you also need to accord precedence to various issues and acquiesce to only those aspects that are likely to place you nearer to the success that you seek. It is futile wasting time on frivolous matters. There will be situations when your focus will get blurred, but since you have your line of action in black and white, you can make use of it to get back on rails.  

·   No looking back:

The likelihood of occasional lethargy creeping in or you losing out on the prospects of success cannot be discounted. There is nothing unusual in such feelings surfacing. The road to success cannot be expected to be absolutely smooth; there will be potholes making your ride a bumpy one. But if you stop, success will delude you all the more. You have to be up and going.

You will have reservations and qualms, but what is important is to keep acting all along. Let your actions be small and eventually they will add up to larger ones. After all, it is the small drops of water that make the mighty ocean and the small grains of sand that make the pleasant land.