Why Companies Demand Employees with Integrity
Trust is the basis of all human relationships and the relationship between employer and employee is no exception. Many kinds of trust are implicit in the relationship, if a worker is without integrity, the employer cannot trust that worker.
Some people are ruthless, the only loyalty that they have is to themselves and their ambition. These people will do anything to gain a perceived advantage over others, and they are competitive to the point of madness. Whilst ambition is laudable, when ambition exceeds reason and ethics, it becomes something almost approaching a mental illness. Employers cannot trust madly ambitious employees, because they will take stupid risks, perhaps with company money, in an effort to further their ambition, they may even break the law to do so. They are intensely competitive and competition becomes more important than doing a good job. At the beginning of the financial crash, in 2008, financial dealers continued to make huge deals, despite all the indicators that the circumstances were changing and these were no longer wise. They were competing with one another and attempting to make the biggest deal, against all common sense and logic, ignoring the warning signs, and at the expense of doing a good job for their companies.
Workplaces infested with ruthlessly ambitious people are unlikely to be happy, or productive, places. Employees are more interested in jostling for position and thinking about how they can score over their colleagues, rather than in doing a good job for their company. These people are intensely individualist and, thus, not good team players because they only care about themselves.
In some industries, or businesses, employees must have a high level of integrity, for example, employees may have access to confidential documents, or sensitive commercial information. If employees engage in industrial espionage, their action could affect both company profits and its very viability. Employees may have access to company money and may use that money illegally to feather their own nests, at the company’s expense. In pursuit of the one very big deal, employees may take or give bribes. Companies can avoid these situations by employing people, with integrity.
Whilst employees aspire to succeed in their careers, and having ambition helps them to do so, when ambition and competition outweigh all other considerations, companies suffer. Ruthless ambition and competition are infectious and lead to a groupthink mentality in a workplace, or industry, where all employees believe their only loyalty is to themselves. Most employees temper their ambition with moral and ethical considerations. Unbridled ambition has consequences for the employee, his, or her, colleagues and for the company. Whether from the public perception of employees’ illegal, or immoral, actions, for example, when consumers believe that the company ordered, or tacitly approved, the employee’s action, or from legal sanctions resulting from their actions, perhaps for bullying, criminal activity or certain activities in regulated industries, companies lose profits or reputation.
Companies prefer to employ people, who have integrity, because they are essential to the success and continued functioning of the company. Employees with moral and ethical principles are loyal employees who contribute to a positive collegiate atmosphere, within the workplace, allowing co-operation, teamwork and company productivity. Employees with integrity, take only sensible risks, act within the law, and aspire to advance in their careers, but not by any means, or at any cost. Employees without integrity cost their company’s reputation, productivity and profits and that is why companies demand employees with integrity.
