Roger Trapp , Forbes; Why Culture And Ethics Are More Important Than Ever
"In an interview on the eve of the document’s publication, Ty Francis, chief advisory officer of LRN, a consultancy that advises organisations around the world on ethics and regulatory compliance, said that people working in the lower reaches of businesses often did not feel the culture in ways that middle managers and above did...
LRN claims the new report — The LRN Benchmark of Ethical Culture — breaks fresh ground through, in addition to setting out how a strong culture improves business performance, providing a framework for measuring it. Its ethical performance model looks at such aspects as the extent to which an organisation is purpose-driven and ethical, whether ethical behaviour is a factor in rewards, whether standards of conduct are applied consistently across the organisation, levels of trust and transparency and whether the leadership models an ethical culture. It also assesses such areas as employee loyalty, customer satisfaction, innovation, adaptability and business growth. LRN’s extensive surveys have led it to divide organisations into four groups, or archetypes, depending on their progress towards achieving ethical cultures. These range from Inspired in that they exemplify all aspects of an ethical culture, through Competent, which covers organisations that are well on the way towards Inspired through building the right structures and the like, and Requisite, which have established cultures but do not inspire employees, to Nascent, which lag behind the others and can actually be toxic, with employees unable to agree that corporate ethics, leadership support or a healthy work atmosphere are present. Those at the top outperform the others according to conventional business criteria by about 40%, thus making a strong case for investment."
