As the head of a business organization, you carry a truckload of responsibilities. You want your business to grow by leaps and bounds, but you are also well aware that it takes a team to get there.
True success is not possible without a collective effort. And your employees make up an integral part of your organization. If they don’t have integrity, progress is difficult.
If your employees are not following the path of integrity, they detract from the organization’s much-needed approach. But firing an employee for not being a “team player” isn’t a solution.
The same problems will persist until you realize it is your responsibility to instill integrity.
The best approach is to make your employees aware of their own strengths and their potential to advance the organization.
There are four important steps to inspire your employees to have integrity:
1. Teach Your Employees What You Mean by Integrity
If your employees don’t understand the concept of integrity, they cannot reap its benefits.
This can be done in a number of ways.
It is easiest to teach integrity through stories, animated movies, films, slide shows, and concrete examples. You should take the time to display these resources at the workplace.
As an example, here is a nice story to motivate employees. Integrity is about moral and ethical principles. But it is also about working in cooperation with others.
Integrity in action can be viewed as a way for people to help resolve each other’s problems and grow together. Here is another story that shows that.
2. Be Unbiased in Your Compensation Decisions
Integrity is modeled from the top. If you are not paying employees fairly, your organization’s team spirit will come under threat. There will be frustration and resentment.
It is vital that you pay similar compensation to employees who are in similar roles. It’s obvious that if an organization’s compensation system is discriminatory, the organization doesn’t understand the concept of integrity.
Integrity is not just about morals or cooperation. It is also about treating everyone equally so they can grow and flourish together.
Paying people fairly does not mean you cannot make distinctions for older workers with more seniority or experience.
3. Make Your Employees Aware of Your Competitors
Every business has competitors, and their biggest threat is their impact on revenue generation if they acquire your customers.
You should make your employees aware of these threats.
Your employees should know that if the competitors outperform you, then it will be more difficult for your organization to make money. And if the organization makes money, they will share in that success through their compensation.
Inspire them to teamwork in which everyone is pulling in the same direction. Employees are more likely to be self-motivated in following the path of integrity once they fully grasp the threat of competitors.
With that knowledge and motivation, your employees should not compete with each other but instead work together to beat competitors.
It’s like when the citizens of a nation unite against outside threats during times of war. They forget their own disputes and differences, and they cooperate to help the nation as a whole.
4. Engage and Interact with Your Employees
Employees always want to know what their boss thinks, as they are the ones who decide others’ fates in the corporate world.
If you have never been an employee, then you won’t understand this. A completely silent attitude towards employee achievements, or lack thereof, is corrosive to morale.
Employees expect general feedback for what they do. So regular interaction with your employees is vital to building their integrity.
If you cannot find time to do it, hire someone who can. But whoever you hire should be highly knowledgeable and authoritative enough to interact effectively with and motivate your employees.
Do you feel appreciated if a child judges you? The obvious answer is no.
Whoever is given the responsibility to oversee and interact with your employees should have sufficient gravitas and the capacity to judge them honestly and give constructive feedback on their work.
By delegating this task wisely, you will be able to foster the path of integrity in your organization.
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How Do You Promote Integrity in the Workplace?
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