The camera follows three teens as they enter the convenience store. Cut to the inside of the store as they approach the counter. We see the store clerk, with a bemused expression, point to a “We Card” sign on the counter.

A woman’s voice, assuming a serious tone, earnestly describes how Philip Morris cares about young people and has distributed over 900,000 “We Card” kits to retail stores. Various scenes follow of happy, equally earnest store employees responsibly taking steps to prevent young, average looking kids from getting their hands on Philip Morris’ flagship product.

Hmmm. Sniff.

I visited the company’s web site at philipmorrisusa.com. A text box dominates their home page reading:

“Our goal is to be the most responsible, effective and respected developer, manufacturer and marketer of consumer products, especially products intended for adults.”

What is that smell? Sniff.

I click on the first link under this text box, “About Us: Mission & Values”. I click through to find their statement of values. The very first value in their list reads as follows.

“We believe in operating with integrity, trust and respect, both as individuals and as a company.”

It goes on to say:

“We believe in sharing with others, unleashing the tremendous resources of our people as a force for good into the communities in which we live and work.”

Sniff.

Companies that go for the gold by claiming their “social responsibility”, touting their corporate citizen credentials in order to demonstrate they are worthy of our consumer dollars, take on a significant danger. They hold themselves up to well-deserved scrutiny, a considerable risk, since we can spot a hypocrite a mile away.

While serving a greater good can reap rewards for a company, a key ingredient for successfully pulling it off is integrity. And, I don’t mean the kind that makes it onto the company’s web site. I’m talking about the kind that passes the “smell test”.

Philip Morris wants us to believe they care about ethics and care about communities. I’m just a little bit stunned by the temerity. The tobacco industry has for decades pimped tobacco to adults and, worse, kids, knowing it was dangerous and addictive. The settlement with tobacco companies called on them to establish foundations and give big money to anti-tobacco campaigns. Now, they are using those donations as a slick PR gimmick to convince us of their responsibility. Oh, and they get a nice tax deduction, too.

Ah. It’s the stench of hypocrisy.

As a parent, if Philip Morris insists on remaining in business and providing consumers with nicotine delivery devices, I suggest they drop the PR schtick and stop pretending to care about the community. But, before they do, I suggest they send the employee volunteers they are so proud of to spend a day or two at a hospice or cancer ward to care for some of their soon-to-be-former customers.

Social responsibility isn’t an ad campaign. It is a way of doing business, one that accepts that a company can do great business by operating ethically and in the best interests of customers and society. But, as companies become more sophisticated in their community involvement practices and publicly claim this higher ground, it will be more and more difficult for the average person to know the difference between a truly responsible business and a fraud.

The power of socially responsible business practices comes not from public displays of empty gestures aimed at grabbing our attention and our wallets. It emerges from concerted action, aligned with authentic concern, aimed at serving people’s needs in a responsible way–safe in the knowledge that doing what is right is the surest path to consumer trust and profits.

It’s about integrity. If not, you run the risk of fouling the air and souring people’s taste for your fare.

Just ask Philip Morris.

Copyright © 2006 Steven E. Schad.

Steve Schad helps companies and individuals tap into service as a strategy for improved performance. Jaded by the junk “teambuilding” games that flood the market, he created a one-of-a-kind team development model called Team Serve. His approach uses volunteer projects as a catalyst for creating the service ethic in a group and teaching critical teaming skills. He also helps executives and managers learn how get more from employees by leading according to a service ethic. He couples an in-depth assessment and development process with powerful volunteer experiences to provide a learning laboratory for core leadership competencies. For more information, visit the Vector Group, LLC web site at http://www.VGLearning.com. Visit Steve’s blog at Service Power.

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FROM the ‘MORAL HIGH GROUND’, where we imagine ourselves, the Enron fiasco should have come as no surprise. Enron is simply a quintessential example of the degradation of principles such as trust, loyalty and ethical standards.

Why it happened,however,is what really needs to be understood if business is to restore its ethical foundation and survive tumultuous times.

Few will argue that business today is more challenging and competitive; most everyone accepts that the marketplace is more cutthroat than ever. We live in a dog-eat-dog world where for most, corporate survival is focused on just trying to not get eaten.

Not long ago, things were not so ruthless, or so we’d like to think. Companies had a tacit understanding with their employees: the company will always be there for you. The expression, “I’m a company man,” once represented the unquestioned relationship between employees and employer. The company was our family, and families looked out for one another. Anything less was considered disloyal and unacceptable.

The 1990s ushered in changes that still exist today. The 90’s also started us on the slippery slope that altered the ground rules for ethics and basic corporate loyalty. Call it downsizing, rightsizing or realigning, but dedicated employees suddenly found themselves on the outs with new, supposedly competitive, corporate initiatives that were sold as necessary to keep companies viable. Keeping viable sometimes meant severing long-serving employees, who were left disillusioned, betrayed and often unarmed to fend for themselves.

Pre-1990, the downsizing of corporate workforces was inconscionable. Companies had an obligation to look after their people, didn’t they? Apparently, they didn’t. The targets of the realignment strategies were the suddenly “overpriced,” tenured employees. Survival strategies were designed to replace higher-income staff (in reality, those who had given the most to the company) with less experienced workers to reduce payroll expenditures.

Cuts in tenured staff were easy to justify providing you bought into the argument that older employees were redundant, i.e., bereft of computer skills. There was some legitimacy to this, but therein lies one of the clearest examples of expediency and cost-cutting prevailing over loyalty and ethics.

It was train existing staff or replace them with young techno-grads at half the price. History demonstrates the route most companies took. It also marked the beginning of the separation of trust between employees and their companies. There is little loyalty left.

Today, employees lucky enough to have outlived the 90’s occupy many of the corner offices on the executive floors. Those who write the cheques and run the companies are the surviving veterans of the last decade, well-trained in guerilla management now unfettered by moral obligations for traits such as loyalty or ethics.

This is not to cast aspersions upon today’s executives but to show how “Enronesque” outcomes can result when industries abandon components essential to sustaining moral values.

Ethics and morality have taken a backseat in business, and there is no greater example than the outgoing settlement cheques being issued to Enron execs. At the same time, 20- and 30-year Enron employees are losing their entire retirement portfolios.

Executives cannot be held totally to blame. They are victims themselves, the byproduct of those well-trained in the new business religion. Most new executive contracts include a Parachute Clause, insurance against the executive or company who wants to part ways. The practice is ethical but, in my opinion, another example of a breakdown in loyalty. It all but promotes failure.

Parachute Planning is analogous to a prenuptial. The purpose and logic is understood. The facts speak for themselves. I read recently that reported 98.9 per cent of prenup-weddings in North America fail within three years. From another perspective, it appears there are now tangible rewards for failure or disloyalty.

The Bottom Line:

Ethics, trust and loyalty are still there. Fundamental values have not changed. Companies who buck the “all-for-me” trend to garner respect and trust will benefit everyone, but it will take time.

About The Author

Author, corporate coach, international keynote speaker and president of Success 150 Group Inc., Suite 458, 7305 Woodbine Ave, Markham, Ont.L3R 3V7

T: 416-728-5556 / 1-866-855-4590

E: paul@success150.com

W: www.paulshearstone.com, http://www.success150.com

Tags: business, business ethics, business trends, downsizing, enron, ethical culture, ethical superstore, ethics, ethics and public policy center, ethics commission, ethics commission georgia, ethics commissioner, ethics government, ethics law, ethics school, legal ethics, trendingbusiness, business ethics, business trends, downsizing, enron, ethical culture, ethical superstore, ethics, ethics and public policy center, ethics commission, ethics commission georgia, ethics commissioner, ethics government, ethics law, ethics school, legal ethics, trending

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Ethics in the field of hiring, staffing and recruitment is based on a combination of things and depends on who is actually involved in the hiring process.

Certainly the job searcher, hiring manager and recruiter are just three possible people involved in a hiring decision.

As a recruiter, I try my best to gauge the truthfulness of comments by both job searchers and hiring managers and they presumably are gauging my truthfulness as well.

Commonly, job searchers often lie about various aspects of their resume ie. their salary, why they left their last job, their job responsibilities, their educational achievements, etc.

Hiring managers might lie about why they are looking to hire a new person ie. they might lie about why the previous person left the job they are trying to fill (if the last person who held the job was fired for something embarrassing like having an office affair or something like that, do you think the hiring manager will tell you the truth about why the person was fired? Me neither). Similarly a hiring manager probably won’t tell you that the previous person quit the job because they were bored or because they thought their manager was a jerk either.

A recruiter needs to find the truth and often needs to read between the lines of comments that are made to them by either the job searcher or the hiring manger.

Similarly some recruiters aren’t always capable of telling the truth 100% of the time either. Recruiters often have a reputation not much better than a used car saleman - no offense to used car salesmen - and sometimes it’s not difficult to see why.

Whether you’re a job searcher looking for a job, a hiring manager looking to fill a job, or a recruiter looking for a job searcher to fill a job, the truth tends to come out one way or the other.

As a recruiter, I have a hard time working with people I can’t trust and I’m usually a pretty good judge of character. I tell the truth when working with job searchers and hiring managers alike and I expect them to do the same.

There are plenty of job searchers and hiring managers - and recruiters - out there and life is just too short to waste time with people who aren’t trustworthy.

Carl Mueller is an Internet entrepreneur and professional recruiter who has written an ebook for career-minded individuals: http://www.RecruiterSecretsRevealed.com

Recruiter Secrets Revealed sheds light on job search and career management “secrets” that you can use to supercharge your career and distinguish yourself from other job searchers.

Tags: business ethics, ethical culture, ethical superstore, ethics, ethics and public policy center, ethics commission, ethics commission georgia, ethics commissioner, ethics government, ethics law, ethics school, hiring, hiring ethics, legal ethics, lying on your resume, recruiterment, recruitment ethics, staffingbusiness ethics, ethical culture, ethical superstore, ethics, ethics and public policy center, ethics commission, ethics commission georgia, ethics commissioner, ethics government, ethics law, ethics school, hiring, hiring ethics, legal ethics, lying on your resume, recruiterment, recruitment ethics, staffing

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