You gave an award to that guy?

Every workplace has an unofficial list of colleagues who have climbed the corporate ladder and amassed recognitions and accolades, despite having questionable morals: the manager with a mistress, the salesman-of-the-month who once paid out kickbacks.When a company or organization gives an award, it conveys a message not only about the person receiving the award, but also about what’s important to the company. Managers have an opportunity to reinforce the culture of the firm by making ethics an explicit part of the criteria for awards or promotions.The same goes for professional certifications. Typically, workers study for an exam, which assesses their depth of knowledge in the field. Those who pass can earn the right to call themselves a certified practitioner of a specific field. Although most of these designations come with ethics requirements, not all mandate that applicants answer the ethics portion of the exam correctly before passing.The most well-known of the professional certifications have a strict code of ethics. Investment analysts who hold the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, for instance, are required to confirm each year that they have upheld the group’s ethics code, said Gregory J Dienna, a CFA holder and wealth manager in New York City. It’s all a part of setting ethics as a public manifestation of what matters to the company. Some financial-services companies, Dienna said, award top salespeople all-expense-paid trips and other prizes for meeting sales goals. That can backfire.“I always wonder, were the salespeople acting in the best interest of the clients or were they trying to sell more stuff to people in order to win a fancy trip,” he said.Dienna thinks employees’ ethics should be part of the decision around how they are recognised and compensated. “By rewarding high-achievers for the way they were successful, employees get the message that meeting the arbitrary sales goal isn’t all that matters; it’s also how you get there,” he said.The ideal is for ethics to tip the scales in an employee’s favour when it comes to awards or special accolades.“All else being equal, of course the ethical conduct (or lack thereof) of an individual would weigh heavily when considering a promotion, reward, recognition or certification,” said Christopher Rotolo, an industrial and organisational psychologist at PepsiCo.For Rotolo, the key is how a company builds in ways to acknowledge ethics as part of its official criteria for such honours. At PepsiCo, he said, the company has an explicit set of “guiding principles” that include ethical requirements such as “sell only products we can be proud of” and “speak with truth and candour.” The beverage giant set up its HR processes and promotion requirements so that these ethical principles are taken into account and rewarded, he said.There’s also the question of who makes the short list for an honour. Anna Marie Valerio, president of Executive Leadership Strategies, a consulting firm in New York City, said the organisation or company granting the award should do its research to make sure any winner really would be a “role model to others in the profession as well as be the very best among all of the candidates vying for the award.”A candidate with ethics problems or one who is known to have violated the organisation’s code of ethics should be blacklisted automatically, she said. The reason is rather simple: if a prize winner has a less-than-sterling reputation, the award tarnishes the organisation itself.(BBC)Bakudaily.az