Organisations that value ethics tend to create cultures that are also more inclusive – because they appreciate the social and human rights implications of inequitable treatment. However, ethics, like diversity and inclusion, is an issue that may appear “soft” and “social justice” at first but also has significant and far reaching financial implications. Ethical and responsible organisations are more attractive to potential investors, employees and customers, and organisations who have had ethical lapses often find them to be financially disastrous.
Symmetra has adapted its unique approach for embedding inclusion to address the challenging subject of ethics in the workplace in an interesting and enjoyable way. Our ethics programs can combine both code of conduct training – delivered in a fun game format (similar to the Diversity Challenge) – with more challenging ethical decision making training which gives people the skills and tools to address those “grey area” issues where straightforward rules either do not apply or where values might come into conflict with one another.
In addition, our market leading expertise on the impacts of unconscious bias has led to the development of programs for ethical mindfulness, which focus on the unconscious psychological traps and blindspots that tend to cause ordinary people with good intentions to make ethical missteps without realising it. This is in fact the most common cause of unethical behaviour, and is the basis of the growing field of behavioural ethics.