These days, more and more businesses are focusing on being ethical. It makes sense – running an ethical company is genuinely valued by customers and consumers alike. By focusing on more ethical practices, you ensure your impact on the world is positive while building a better brand. The question is, what moves can you make to become a more ethical business? Keep reading to learn more.
Provide a Great Employee Experience
One of the main focuses of any ethical company is providing an excellent employee experience. You want to ensure that every team member, from the receptionist to the hiring manager, has a brilliant experience working for you. Whether they are settling in during the onboarding process or experiencing workplace conflict, every staff member needs to feel well looked after by their employer.
Some employer benefits to focus on that will help boost their experience include:
. Flexible working
. Excellent benefits
. Fair pay
. A great work environment
A big part of the employee experience is an excellent HR department. Luckily, that can be handled out-of-office with HR outsourcing for businesses. By using HR support, you ensure every employee’s needs are handled professionally.
Choose Ethical Suppliers
It’s difficult to call yourself an ethical company if your money goes to unethical businesses. Look at your suppliers and consider how ethical they are in terms of how they treat their staff and how environmentally friendly they are. You might not need to change suppliers at all, or you might need to look at new buying options. Switching suppliers isn’t always a simple task, but it’s essential to put your money into companies that are as ethical as you are striving to be.
Hire Ethical Managers
One of the strongest parts of an ethical company is excellent leadership. To become a more ethical business, you need to hire ethical leaders, from sales management to the CEO. They need to be empathetic, understanding, strong-willed, and motivational. The company’s leaders are the ones leading teams to success, so their qualities matter.
Have Strong Values
While there are universal values that all ethical companies should hold, you should also consider what your unique ones are. For example, you could focus on workplace diversity, green energy, employee experience, or high pay. These values will represent you as a company, so you must choose ones that reflect who you are and then stick to them rigidly.
Be Open and Transparent
A shady company that hides critical information from its customers and employees isn’t an ethical one. Instead, strive to be as open and transparent as possible. If something goes wrong, don’t hide away from it – work on fixing the problem while being transparent about what happened. In the end, people value honesty more than perfection.
Remove Bias when Hiring
Removing bias from hiring is much easier said than done. Luckily, there are a few ways to help with this. When screening candidates, for example, remove the information that might result in subconscious bias or favor, such as ethnicity, age, location, gender, or sexuality. On top of that, you could create a more diverse interviewing team. By removing as much bias as possible, you ensure your company promotes diversity in the workplace.
Go Green
Going green is a responsibility that must be taken on by both individuals and companies. As individuals, people can make minor adjustments in their day-to-day lives, such as recycling more or buying second-hand. As a business, it takes a little more work.
To go green as a company, you must promote environmentally friendly practices throughout the workplace. That could mean encouraging more recycling, using less energy, or creating a product that only uses sustainable materials. Remember that going green can take time – not every business can jump to paperless in the matter of a week!
Be Willing to Change for the Better
Part of being an ethical workplace is understanding that you aren’t perfect – no company is. You might only buy from ethical suppliers and promote a diverse workplace, but there will always be ways to improve.
Over time, you will discover fairer ways of hiring, managing, marketing, and more. You must be willing to change once you identify a better way of handling business. That way, your company will consistently grow for the better.
Being an ethical company is beneficial in so many ways. Not only will your impact on the earth, your customers, and your employees be improved, but you will also benefit from an improved reputation.
Barry Lachey is a Professional Editor at Zobuz. Previously He has also worked for Moxly Sports and Network Resources “Joe Joe.” He is a graduate of the Kings College at the University of Thames Valley London. You can reach Barry via email or by phone.
