How to implement ethical management in your company?

Whether it be ensuring the well-being of employees, acting to protect the environment, demonstrating integrity and transparency to stakeholder, the ethical dimension can take many forms within a company. To establish and convey these values, the manager plays a decisive role. Here are some tips to implement ethical management in your company.  

What is ethical management?

Ethical management is based on the moral values of integrity, respect, deontology, benevolence and fairness, in parallel with the search for performance and profitability. In the business world, ethics can be translated both at the collective level (i.e. the actions of the company as a legal entity) and at the individual level (i.e. the behaviour of employees, managers, executives, etc.). The challenge for a manager who adopts an ethical line of conduct is therefore to respect the different rules established while ensuring team productivity and operational efficiency.  

Why should you adopt ethical management?

Integrating an ethical dimension to its management style is a major challenge for any company. This initiative, if carried out effectively, can help boost the attractiveness of a company, enhance its brand image and reinforce its competitive advantage, but above all, solidify the support and commitment of its employees. Legal obligations are also involved. A number of laws, such as GDPR (personal data protection regulation) or Sapin 2 (Code of Conduct or Ethics Charter), now frame business around transparency, the fight against corruption and the modernisation of economic life, all of which require the adoption of a code of conduct, the law on duty of vigilance, etc. Furthermore, adopting ethical practices that reflect a true sense of morality also plays an important role in the acquisition of talent and in the attractiveness of the employer brand.  

How can you introduce ethical management?

Here are examples of concrete steps you can take to implement ethical governance and management within your company:

Take stock of the situation

The first step prior to any profound transformation is to conduct a thorough inventory. In particular, the following questions must be answered: what ethical practices already exist? Can they be strengthened? What are the possible shortcomings? What practices can be deployed to ensure an ethical code of conduct at the individual, team and organisational levels? Is the current management style aligned with the company's values? Is the company in compliance with the various legal obligations governing business ethics? This analysis can be carried out with the help of different managers and key employees.

Draft an ethics charter

Drafting an ethics charter is a central action in the implementation of ethical management. This document should exhaustively list the various rules, procedures, practices, behaviours and management methods that are both encouraged and prohibited. This must be performed at all levels across the company, both internally, and externally with stakeholders. All these elements should be progressively integrated into the company's culture. The ethics charter may include a code of conduct to be respected, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) actions to be taken on the environmental (better resource management, eco-gestures, etc.), social and economic levels, and ethical practices to be adopted on the commercial, legal, fiscal, managerial level, etc. This reference framework will then have to be communicated to employees, and be subject to regular monitoring and revision of the various rules of conduct established. To reinforce this initiative, you could appoint an ethics manager or create an ethics committee within your company. In addition, it can be highly beneficial to call on an interim manager to pilot such a change or train managers in this type of leadership.

Place team well-being at the heart of management

Responsible, ethical and fair management puts the well-being of employees first. The manager must therefore demonstrate fairness, respect, benevolence, listening skills, etc. They help teams progress by developing their skills, training them regularly, encouraging the autonomy of each individual and rewarding employees. The human resources department plays an essential role in this approach, in order to ensure non-discrimination in hiring, a good balance between professional and personal life, quality of life in the workplace, and a balance between male and female salaries.

Set an example

In order to establish a professional ethic, managers must also set an example through behaviour that promotes transparency, honesty, trust and respect for others, even in emergency situations, stressful circumstances or potentially conflictual contexts. Here again, the strategic challenge lies in the implementation, on a daily basis, of codes of ethics despite the search for results and economic performance.