For businesses to thrive and be successful there has to be a lot of trust between people.
Trust between employer and employee and trust between supplier and customer. To help build this trust your behaviour in business will determine your reputation and whether or not you are trustworthy.
When I took over Business Training I spent some time thinking about these things and felt we generally operated in an ethical and trustworthy manner. But just to make sure, I wrote down my aims and checked to see if we were living up to the ideals.
Welfare of Staff
Our primary concern is the welfare of our staff. This may seem an odd place to start, as surely it should be the customer who comes first and some would say profit should be our primary concern.
Well they all go hand in hand. If you have happy, well motivated staff they will then look after your customers and this will lead to good returns – or so the theory goes!
How to have Motivated Staff
Here’s my wish list on how we should treat our staff. We aim to:
• Treat people fairly
• Treat people as individuals
• Reward fairly
• Provide a safe environment in which to work
• Provide a pleasant environment in which to work
• Help people professionally where possible
• Give individuals pride in their work and a feeling of satisfaction in their job
• Not tolerate bullying, racism and sexism
• Not accept sloppy work and laziness
• Reward those who go the extra mile.
Because you’re dealing with people simply having a wish list isn’t enough. You have to put into place strategies and procedures to achieve your aims and this can be very time consuming and hard work. But hopefully the hard work will pay off and show in your profits.
Creating Trust with Customers
It’s essential to have a good reputation amongst your customers. These days if your customers are not happy with you they tell everyone on the Internet – and that can do your business real harm.
We aim to provide our students with:
• Value for money
• Good quality products or in our case courses
• Good service
• A community they can feel part of
Plus we:
• Listen and deal with complaints fairly and quickly
• Listen to suggestions of ways we can improve
Creating Trust with Suppliers
Suppliers put a lot of faith and trust in their customers when they extend them credit. And having good relations with your suppliers can help your business to thrive. They’ll offer you better prices; a quick service and pull out the stops for you should you need them to. Treat your suppliers fairly and with respect and your business can really benefit.
Here at Business Training we try to:
• Be fair with payment terms
• Pay when bills are due
• Find win-win solutions to problems that arise.
There are many more factors that will affect the success of your business. But building a business on clear ethical standards will help you to create a business you can be really proud of.
The above are my thoughts on Business Ethics as I would like to apply them to Business Training. But this is a vast subject so for more on Business Ethics visit:
The Institute of Business Ethics: http://www.ibe.org.uk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_ethics
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-business-ethics.htm
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