Ethics and Integrity

Serious employees with high ethical standards work with integrity. They follow a strict code of behaviour at work to make sure they give their employer the best possible output for the money. They pay attention during training to make sure they understand their job's duties well. They make every effort to perform their jobs as competently as possible. They control the quality of their output. They work consistently and constantly, and when they run out of things to do, they ask for more. They continue to work even when unsupervised.

Most workers fall short of this ideal. Some may not work as hard as they can. Others are careless about their output. Some require constant supervision. A few can still find ways to slack off while under supervision. Whether certain behaviours are considered "unethical" depends on an employee's values and the employer's expectations, but the following are usually considered serious problems:

Shortening Your Work Day: You often arrive at work late, look forward to breaks, take longer breaks than allowed and leave work early.

Getting Easily Distracted: You do not concentrate on your work. You chat to co-workers. Whenever anyone walks by or makes a noise, you divert your attention.

Producing Inadequate Output: You do not pay attention to the quality of your output. You even make errors on purpose when your supervisor angers you or you have a grievance.

Limiting Your Abilities And Responsibilities: You learn how to do as little as possible so that you are not asked to do as much. When a supervisor asks you to do something new, you object that you do not know how to do the task. If the supervisor insists that you learn, you mess up on purpose, so you will never be asked again.

Working in Slow Motion: You make no effort to improve your efficiency. Your movements and activities are painfully slow. If you are angry with your supervisor, you slow down even more.

Requiring Supervision: You work only under the threat of punishment. If your supervisor is not there, you stop working. If you run out of things to do, you never seek more work. You do only what you are told to do and only when someone is breathing down your neck.

Complaining to Get Out of Doing Work: When ordered to do something, you react with insolence, complaining your supervisor gives you too much to do. Then, you perform the task slowly and sullenly.

You can often get by for a time with many of these behaviours. However, they reflect a very poor attitude and are a burden on the other workers. Workers who act these ways seldom advance. They often jump from job to job, looking for greener pastures and blaming others when their lack of integrity as workers limits their success.