We have reached a particular point in time where the only certain thing in the economy is uncertainty. Numerous changes in the global political and business world have led to an uncertain and challenging economy for businesses as they race towards a greater goal every year. This pushes the need for better regulations and compliances for business conduct.
In a more recent survey, it is found that the younger generation is not hesitant to follow unethical practices to improve business and they even justify their behavior of following these unethical behaviors. In the past it may be the desire to protect the company that motivated them, but, now individuals are more focused on their self-gain as they feel that they can follow any means necessary to keep their business up and running. In this digital era, the companies should make use of the new technologies and information to study the data and get valuable insights that would help them to overcome these setbacks and saddle-up for a much greater business ethics.
Corruption is still at large in today’s global economy but a recent study shows that 77% of the people are ready to welcome a new initiative that would the executive account to his/her misconduct. But sadly, unethical behaviors and mistrust among colleagues are a major part of today’s workplaces and it is seen that 1 in every 4 business executives believe in using cash to retain business or win over them. To overcome these roots of bribery and corruption companies can make use of the data collected over various sources of their employees such as monitoring their email logs and messengers to protect their company from any potential risks that could degrade or devalue their company. While some agree to the idea a majority of the population, 89% claim that monitoring their data violates their privacy. This is different in the case of whistle-blowers.
When employees come across misconduct they are either hesitant or they don’t know how to comprehend it. But those who are willing to take action prefer to do it outside the organizations such as media or law enforcement, In-fact 73% are willing to provide the information to a third party. This is another problem for the organizations to take care, as the situation becomes more complicated if dealt outside the company.
This makes them believe that bringing a better regulation to streamline the business conduct and ethics is an inevitable factor. Over 70% of the surveyed people believe that bringing a new regulation will make things better. This makes us lean towards the importance of data privacy and data governance since anyone with access of the company’s data, anywhere in the world would be putting the company’s data assets at risk. While many oppose the idea due to privacy, the company must be able to bridge this gap by raising the awareness to their employees about the risk the company is posing and it is better to secure the data and monitor them. In terms of whistle-blowers, organizations must encourage them to do the right thing to ensure that ethics is being followed on. A survey found out that 51% are concerned about their future, 46% over their personal safety, 30% over the loyalty to their colleagues and 24% over their loyalty to their company, they are restraining themselves from reporting the misconducts in the company internally. However, even when employees want to report, they may not know how. A survey has found that only 21% of people are aware of a whistle blowing hotline within their company.
The young generation are the future leaders of our businesses. Unless action is taken now to set high ethical standards and address conduct at all levels of organizations, unethical conduct could increase in the future.