How you can manage the epidemic of immoral millennials

Millennials are most willing to lie to get ahead but are you inadvertently encouraging their bad behaviour? ILM’s CEO thinks so.

According to a range of recent studies, workplace principals are on the plummet and ILM’s CEO Charles Elvin says leaders should be the ones responsible for improving a company’s code of conduct.

“As more and more organizations seek to embed a culture of ethical awareness and behaviour, it is crucial to set clear guidelines on what is and is not acceptable within the workplace,” Elvin said.

ILMs report ‘Employees behaving badly’ turned up some alarming results that suggest managers know all about this bad behaviour and often turning a blind eye.

The top ten most unethical workplace behaviours:
  1. Cutting corners – 72 per cent
  2.  Lying to hide your mistakes – 72 per cent
  3. Badmouthing colleagues – 68 per cent
  4. Passing the buck - 67 per cent
  5. Slacking off when nobody is watching – 64 per cent
  6. Lying to hide other people’s mistakes – 63 per cent
  7. Taking credit for other people’s work – 57 per cent
  8. Taking a sick day – 56 per cent
  9. Lying about skills and experience – 54 per cent
  10. Taking low value items from work – 52 per cent
“At a time when organizations are bending over backwards to demonstrate their ethical credentials, we were surprised to see just how endemic some of these bad behaviours are in the workplace,” added Elvin.

Now, CEO Elvin is calling for HR professionals to lead by example because bosses, knowingly or unknowingly, may be encouraging this unethical behaviour themselves.

While employers may be comfortable with workers occasionally using the office printer for personal reasons, it’s likely they’d be far less understanding of employees telling lies or cutting corners and, according to Elvin; “leaders need to set that benchmark by defining the types of behaviour that will not be tolerated, by putting in place a clear ethical statement and leading by example.”