Ethical Companies and Employees Are More Successful | ATD (2024)

Companies with a strong ethical foundation tend to do better financially, have higher rates of employee retention, and benefit from more customer referrals and higher customer service satisfaction numbers. These benefits are generated specifically by ethical employees who enjoy more professional success overall and function with less stress. However, making sure employees, and the organization as a whole, are on the same ethical page is often a difficult prospect. Using narrative tools can help, however. “Our brain likes story—we’re engaged by story,” says Michelle Correia-Templin, president of Get Smart Training. “You need to think about your ethics program as a story that should engage and circle and hug your employees and your co-workers. Not just rules and regulations that you put in a binder or some policy that they sign, but an ongoing story that continues to evolve and adapt.” She adds that emotional bias is the main roadblock to ethical practices in the workplace. Risk aversion and attention scarcity are two main components of this emotional bias. Encouragement and connectivity can combat these factors. “Everyone wants to be the hero of their own story,” Correia-Templin says. “Your job is to encourage them and let them be.”