Business ethics by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free
There is something important to know about ethical businesses and the practices that take place within them; the effects and results of those ethical business practices are far-reaching. They have an impact on everyone and everything associated with the business, from customers and clients to suppliers, and even people who have never heard of the business and have never used it can benefit. Plus, when you run an ethical business, you’ll be more in line with many of the legal obligations that businesses have to follow to stay above board.
In many cases, if a business owner wants to act more ethically, there will be some crucial decisions to be made, and they might relate to topics that some would consider controversial. It’s vital that you don’t lose your nerve if you are this business owner. If you want your business to be more ethical, you need to push forward with this idea as it will benefit you and everyone around you once you manage it.
What Are Ethical Business Practices?
We’ve mentioned ethical business practices and how important they are to a business, but if you don’t know what they are, it’s going to be hard for you to put them in place and run an ethical business. With that in mind, let’s look further into just what ethical business practices are.
To start with, we need to know what is meant by ‘ethics. Ethics are moral rules that guide everyone’s behavior and make sure that, when there is a choice to be made, we choose the right thing. This means that in terms of your business, your ethical business practices are the principles in place to ensure your business always – at least as far as possible – does the right thing. They don’t just affect your business but are rules that employees, customers, partners, suppliers, investors, and more will need to abide by. Plus, you’ll have to ensure you always follow them if you want your team to do the same.
It’s not as simple as saying that if you stay within the law, you are acting ethically. There are plenty of unethical business practices that might not be morally correct but that are perfectly legal, for example. So, it’s important to think carefully about just why you want to act ethically, and what that means for you and your business specifically.
Why Are Ethical Business Practices Important?
If there are legal unethical business practices, and if you can follow the law and you don’t have to work hard at your ethical practices, what is the point of them? Why are they considered so important? This is a good question; it’s not always easy to act ethically, so why do it as long as whatever you do is not against the law? The reality is there are a number of reasons why ethical business practices are important.
One good reason to work ethically is that in many cases, your employees will be more productive and motivated to work hard. On top of that, they will stay loyal. They will be happy to work in a place that takes its ethical responsibilities seriously, and they won’t feel as though you are going against their own principles, which can be a big reason for resignations and high staff turnover (which is costly and can cause damage to your reputation).
If you do need to hire new staff for any reason, if you run a noticeably ethical business, it will be a lot easier to attract top-quality candidates; they will only want to work in places where their own reputation won’t be tarnished, and by picking highly ethical workplaces, they can be happy they are making the right choice, and you can be happy as you’ll have an excellent talent pool to choose from.
You’ll also find that customers prefer to buy from ethical businesses when they can. In fact, many people spend time searching for ethical companies before they make any purchase – buying online means they are no longer limited to their closest store or business, and now they have a lot more choice. They want to buy well. If you can be the ethical business they are looking for, you’ll find you have many loyal customers who return to you time and again because they trust you to do the right thing. Investors will look at this positively, and if you need a cash injection, you’ll find it’s easier to obtain if you are ethical.
Now you know what it means to be an ethical business and why it’s so important, here are some of the ways you can go about it.
Educate Yourself
We’ve only given you a brief overview of what business ethics means, and there is plenty more to learn about the subject if you want to get it right. For some, this will mean speaking to a mentor or trusted confidant and finding out more. For others, it’s a question of looking at videos on YouTube or reading journal articles.
However, to really find out all you need to know, and to obtain a qualification that proves you have this knowledge, the best thing to do is apply for an online DBA program from Marymount University. This degree will teach you so much about business ethics, among many other useful facts and information about running a business in the 21st century. Once you have this knowledge and you put it to good use within your business, you’ll find that being ethical becomes a much more straightforward task, and the benefits you reap will far outweigh any time, effort, or cost you need to invest.
Make It Easy For People To Raise Concerns
Have you ever had a complaint or even just a question that you wanted to put to a business you had bought from or were contemplating buying from? It’s highly likely this is the case; most of us will have had a negative experience or just needed to know more before making a purchase, particularly if the item we were buying was high-priced.
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What do you do when this happens? The first thing the majority of people will do is go online and search for contact information. They might use FAQ sections first, but this is less likely. So, what happens when this information is hard or impossible to find? The customer becomes suspicious; they get the feeling that the business they are attempting to interact with is hiding something. After all, why else make their contact information and complaints procedures so hard to find?
Clearly, if you want to be a more ethical business, you don’t want people to think you’re hiding anything or that you aren’t quite as good as you make yourself out to be. With that in mind, you must ensure that, should anyone need to contact you, you give them the necessary resources and information to do just that.
It might not be pleasant to receive complaints, but it is necessary. Not only will it show you are an ethical company because you allow feedback, and therefore you can put your customers’ minds at rest with little effort, but this feedback can also be extremely beneficial to your business.
There might be some brilliant new ideas that you hadn’t considered, meaning that you can put them into practice and become even more ethical. Certainly, any customers who might have had an issue with the way you were doing things will be pleased when you make positive changes.
You can put a clear contact page on your website, as this will help people get in touch to raise concerns (or even just to ask a question that will lead them to make a purchase from you). You can also have up to date social media pages that people can contact you through. These efforts will all pay dividends in the end.
Tell People
Being ethical and having people know you’re ethical may well be two entirely separate things. You can be as ethical as you want to be in your business, and that’s a good thing, but if no one knows what you’re doing, how are they going to know that you’re the right business to buy from?
This is why you need to tell people how ethical you are. It might seem like you’re boasting or bragging, but it’s the only way to ensure that those who want to know whether they are buying ethically can find out. Don’t be afraid to talk about the things you’re doing and the practices you’re abiding by on your website and on social media. You can even create a specific ethics policy. People want to know, and they don’t want to have to ask you what your ethics are.
They would rather just see the evidence themselves and make up their own minds. Although word of mouth is a wonderful tool, you can’t rely on it, at least at the start of your business journey. You’ll need to shout about your ethical business practices in order to be heard in the crowded business marketplace.
Look At Your Competitors
Everyone has competition in business, and there is no point in denying that this is the case. In fact, pretending that you don’t have any competition and ignoring the fact that they are there and could potentially take your customers from you is a dangerous way to run a business – it could lead to complacency, and that can lead to a loss in profits.
There are a number of reasons why you should investigate your business rivals. Marketing is one reason; looking at how they are marketing and using the elements that work well (without directly copying) is a great way to get started, for example. Checking out their pricing and what you get for the money paid is another good idea.
Then there are their business ethics; what are they doing well in this regard that you can also put into practice? What are they lacking that you can do better and therefore win more customers from? Understanding what your competition is doing means you’ll get a head start on the kind of ethical elements you can bring into your business, and you can move forward more quickly since there will be fewer obstacles in your way.
Define Your Values Clearly
Being vague when it comes to your ethics isn’t going to work very well. You need to be precise, and you need to be accurate – there is no room for any gray areas here. If you say you’re against something, that means you always need to be against it, not just when it makes business sense. The same is true if you are acting for something; that’s the path you’ll always need to go down.
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Of course, things change. What was once deemed ethical might no longer be quite so positive in years to come. In this kind of situation, the best course of action is for you to realign your ethics in a better place. However, if you do this, you need to make it clear to the general public why you are making changes.
They will understand if they have all the information, but if you just suddenly change the way you’ve been doing things, it can seem strange and even untrustworthy. Don’t alienate your customers by keeping them in the dark.
In most cases, however, the ethics of your business will align with your own personal ideals, and that means they should be easy to define and make clear to those who are seeking more information. Have these ethics at the heart of everything you do, and your brand will become synonymous with good things.
It Starts At The Top
If you want your team to model the ethical values you have put forth for your company, you need to make sure you do the same. Good leadership starts at the top and is visible to all, ensuring that everyone can follow a good example. You need to be that good example in all areas of your business, and perhaps especially your ethical ones.
The best businesses are those that are known for having leaders with a lot of integrity who stand by their values no matter what. They will put the business’s needs well above their own, and they will ensure that their customers and staff are happy too. Respect is a crucial part of this behavior, but so too is accepting when you make a mistake and being as ethical as possible at all times.
If you can do all of this, your team are likely to follow suit, and that means your entire business will be a much more ethical, much more positive place. In other words, you can’t run an ethical business on a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ attitude because this is just not going to work.
