7 Great Ways to Instil Integrity in the Workplace

5 min read |

Last Updated on 18 July 2024

Do you know what’s the most common thing that the top organizations in the world share? It’s their high degree of integrity in the workplace that they adhere to in everything they do.

Organizations with a high level of integrity enjoy better stability, exceptional growth, improved workflow, and heightened workplace satisfaction. Of all these, the most important outcome is strong employer branding.

In case you’re confused about what integrity actually means, then here’s your answer.

What is Integrity?

Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not - Oprah Winfrey

It is the essence of one being honest, punctual, sincere, willing to learn from the mistakes and rise from their current state. It also implies the moral and ethical principles that one adheres to in their professional and personal life.

Overall, integrity is the foundation that helps individuals stay firm amidst everything that might come in their path towards success.

Now, imagine every employee following the principles of integrity in their work. It is obvious now that whatever they do with utmost integrity is sure to succeed. And the collective efforts of all the employees will take their respective companies to new heights.

But the catch here is you cannot force someone to have integrity. It’s a natural tendency that can only be encouraged with justified actions and setting examples. This is where the main tasks for employers start. The task of developing integrity in the workplace amongst the employees.

7 Ways to Demonstrate Integrity in the Workplace

1. Convey the Importance of Integrity

Change comes through awareness. No one would come forward to commit to an action or a value until they realize its importance.

Similarly, to encourage integrity in your workplace, you first need to convey its importance to your employees.

Here are some of the questions that you need to address to emphasize its importance.

Why is having integrity necessary?
How it positively impacts their professional and personal lives?
How integrity reverts in the form of respect from others?
What kind of actions define integrity?

As an employer, when you help your employees understand integrity, they are more likely to follow the principles of integrity.

A simple tip here would be to use examples with actions that define integrity in a much more transparent way.

2. Adhere to Fair Compensation Methods

Employees divert from their path of fair business practices when they aren’t fairly compensated. It further puts your aorganization's work culture under threat. Also, it gives rise to hostility among the employees who receive variable remuneration despite being in the same position.

Moreover, any sort of discrimination within the organization clearly displays a lack of integrity. So, in a much simple term, integrity is not only about showing virtuosity. It also means treating everyone with equal importance.

When you treat employees equally, the level of integrity in the workplace rises without any doubt.

3. Maintain Utmost Transparency

The most important piece in the puzzle of fostering integrity is transparency. Many businesses fail to prosper or go out of order due to the lack of transparency.

Employees deserve to know which way is the business heading towards. It helps them take the necessary measures to keep things on track. Keeping them in the dark about it is not a good call, even if the business isn’t performing well. Here, the task of maintaining transparency is mainly on the shoulders of the higher up running the show.

Employers sharing important business matters with the workforce display integrity upfront. Also, it elevates their trust in their higher-ups. Thus, paving the way towards continuous growth and healthy work culture.

4. Introduce Employee Engagement Program

Encouraging integrity becomes easier when every employee feels motivated and stays engaged. And for it, nothing works much better than an employee engagement program.

An employee engagement program is much more than just keeping your employees engaged. Engaged employees are more aligned with the core values of a company.

Rewards and recognition which are an integral part of this program is another way to encourage integrity in the workplace.

When you acknowledge an employee’s efforts, they feel obliged and satisfied. It encourages them to give their best every time they do something. Therefore, bringing up the integrity within them and delivering a productive workforce.

5. Healthy Communication Practices

Having good communication practices is an inevitable requirement for establishing integrity. A person's integrity is often known in the way he or she communicates.

Employees with good communication skills stand apart from the crowd. And they’re viewed as a person with high integrity, adding to their self-confidence. Also, they earn the trust of their team members and superiors, which they leverage in their day-to-day work.

Hence, encouraging healthy communication practices within the workplace is one of the best ways to nurture integrity in the workplace.

6. Set Goals

Setting goals helps in formulating the path to success.

When one sets a goal, it implies the level of dedication they are ready to put in it. An individual derives the commitment for any work from the level of integrity that they adhere. Setting goals is a perfect way to foster integrity in the workplace. When employees have goals to achieve, they are less likely to divert their minds elsewhere apart from work.

Moreover, it also helps them develop a sense of integrity, without which achieving targets are impossible.

7. Discourage the Concept of Favoritism

Favoritism arises when a deserving person gets neglected over someone who has good relations with the decision-makers. This kind of act adversely affects the moral and ethical principles followed in the organization.

This kind of malpractice goes against all the principles of integrity. Moreover, when employees are left out despite being qualified, they feel demotivated. Further, under the clouds of such dissatisfaction, employees deviate from their set goals.

Favoritism in the workplace shouldn’t only be discouraged because it diminishes integrity. But it also goes against the work ethics.

Conclusion

Having integrity in the workplace has become very important these times. Employees now have to go through a lot in the context of their work. As such, remaining firm in their stand between good and the bad requires high standards of integrity. Many organizations around the world have it as a part of their core values.

Encouraging employees to work with integrity should begin on the very first day they join you. This will not only help towards better work ethics but will strengthen their own moral and ethical principles.

While writing this article, I could think of the above 7 points, which I thought to be of utmost importance.

Working as a SEO Analyst and Content Marketer at Vantage Circle, Angshuman always stays curious and is passionate about learning new things. Got any question? Drop a mail at editor@vantagecircle.com