Do You Measure How Ethical You Are?

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Ethics and trust are intertwined, especially when it comes to business. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer puts this at the heart of it’s analysis of business trust and ethics and the results are clear: Ethics is everything if you want to gain trust.

Do you trust your organisation to do what is right? You could equally ask the question of a CEO, a manager or a co-worker if you’re trying to assess their ethical behaviours. Do you trust your boss, your team, or your colleagues to do what is right? What is “right” changes over time, but in the end depends on how your customers, your employees or your family might view your actions.

As a leader in your organisation do your actions generate trust from your team? In the Edelman survey 78% of respondents agreed with the statement “How a company treats its employees is one of the best indicators of its level of trustworthiness”. In addition to this, 67% of respondents said “A good reputation may get me to try a product, but unless I come to trust the company behind the product, I will soon stop buying it.”  

When you’re designing a measure to understand how your team perceive your ethics, consider the question “Do you trust your manager to do what is right?”. For all the nitty gritty check out the Edelman Trust Barometer Report in full.

About the Authors

Giles Pearson FCA was a PwC Partner for 18 years before jointly setting up Accountests.  

Steve Evans has a whole career dedicated to enabling employers to attract, recruit, develop and retain talented individuals and teams, with particular expertise in candidate testing and assessment before setting up Accountests.

Accountests deliver the world’s only online suite of annually updated and country-specific technical knowledge tests designed by accountants for accountants and bookkeepers.