Expert warns tough times need exceptional vigilance.
Every job is designed to make or save money because every business is designed to make money. Even not-for-profits need a positive cash flow to continue fulfilling their mission and a majority of municipalities are under ever-greater fiscal constraints. Predictably, periods when business and cash infusions have slowed down are times when business owners, managers and executives start looking especially hard for ways to quickly shore up the bottom line.
Perhaps equally predictably, slow times-because quick cash or savings are so frequently being sought-are among the highest risk times for ethics problems. When business is slow, you need to be especially vigilant:
• Not to cut corners on adherence to policies, procedures, or legal mandates in the name of cost cutting.
• Not to be swayed by others to avoid confronting observed or suspected ethical or legal problems out of fiscal concern. (e.g., "It may not be right but we need to let him/her do it that way because it's cheaper, more efficient, or more profitable that way.")
• To stay focused in your efforts to look for hidden or potential ethics problems. Slow business periods are times when both ethical and legal problems are particularly prone to appear in such widely different places as bidding procedures, purchasing contracts, observance of overtime pay regulations, medical leave decisions, etc. Anyone charged with saving money may feel especially under the gun to make ethical compromises to reduce a budget shortfall.
• To maintain a safe working environment. When budgets are tight and the need for efficiency is seen as paramount, shortcuts on safety are often one of the first things one sees.
• To not cut corners on either product or service quality. Of course, the risks here are not just ones of ethics. The serious, long-term reputational damage caused by poor quality products and service can ultimately cost your business far more than any short-term savings such cuts could ever provide.
Companies, agencies and governments alike need to constantly monitor and reinforce ethical and legal behavior regardless of how business is faring at the moment. If your organization is going through a slump though, as so many are today, be sure to be especially vigilant about looking for and confronting any ethical or legal compromises being panic-driven by efforts to cope with the slowdown.
Information on Bauer Ethics Seminars is available at
