Minority of human resources professionals report existence of company ethics and compliance programs

By James Hyatt

Less than half of human resources professionals report their companies include ethical conduct as part of employee performance appraisals, a new survey has found.

The study, prepared by the Society for Human Resource Management and the Ethics Resource Center, questioned 513 human resource professionals. Among the high points:

• 43 percent of HR professionals said ethical conduct is included in performance appraisals
• only 23 percent said their organizations have a comprehensive ethics and compliance program in place
• 7 percent report their employer has no program at all
• 82 percent of the HR professionals said they reported ethical misconduct when it was observed, compared with 61 percent of employees (questioned in a separate survey)

The study found that when HR professionals did not report wrongdoing, it was typically because they didn't think they could remain anonymous, nor did they think that the people involved would be disciplined.
 
Ethical misconduct most commonly identified by HR professionals included abusive or intimidating behavior toward fellow employees, plus abuse of e-mail or Internet privileges. U.S. employees cited instances of colleagues calling in "sick" inappropriately, and people taking credit for someone else's work.
 
Among HR professionals, 77 percent think that top management would be less likely to be held accountable if caught violating their organization's ethics standards than supervisors (86 percent) and non-management employees (91 percent).
 
A small proportion of HR professionals (19 percent) and employees (11 percent) reported feeling pressure by others (within their organization or externally) to compromise their organization's ethics standards, company policy, or the law.