DEMONSTRATE ETHICAL BEHAVIOUR AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Define your business principles and expect employees to follow them.


As a small business owner, you will have many opportunities to show employees what values you represent. Your example can inspire your staff to act as responsible members of your organization. With the social status you've attained as an entrepreneur, accept the challenge of using your business for giving back to society, even with no profit motive behind your contribution.

Study Your Environment

The best way to build a reputation as a socially responsible and ethical business leader is to learn the rules of your job. Your company has different stakeholders, including customers, business competitors, suppliers, public officials and the general public. These people have their own interest in your business activities and their own definitions of acceptable business behavior. Learn the written and unwritten rules of business that will help them respect you. For example, learn where to find experienced employees without trying to recruit top employees away from your local competitors.

Look for Opportunities

There are ways to fast-track your business growth and be socially responsible at the same time. Look for ways to give back to society that are cost-efficient and appealing to your staff. For example, if you own a large produce business, invite the public to a pre-Halloween pumpkin patch. Offer 100 pumpkins for a low price or for no charge to needy families. Post pictures of your event on your website and on your social networking profiles. People who attend the event might also post their pictures online. This kind of free publicity puts your business in a positive light and creates wider consumer awareness of your produce company.

Get Employee Input

Share some responsibility for choosing social responsibility projects with your staff. Create a committee that will review any existing social responsibility projects to see if they're aligned with your current business strategy. This committee can also look for new projects and seek the approval of your marketing officer before starting them. Looking at the marketing benefits of social projects before devoting company resources to them makes good sense. Do the right thing as an employer by compensating employees for the time they spend organizing social projects and allowing them to participate in volunteer activities to support those projects during their regular workday without expecting them to make up the time.

Create an Audit System

To ensure that you uncover instances of ethical wrongdoing in your business, give employees a person or anonymous hotline to which they can report suspicious activities. Develop an audit system that will reveal employee dishonesty, especially when it comes to collecting cash from customers. Require at least two employees to sign off on a cash deposit at the end of their shift. The next business day, you can audit a deposit bag before taking it to the bank. Look for differences between the amount of money reported by employees and what your computer system report tells you was collected for that shift. It's ethically and financially important to identify missing funds because they symbolize lost profits for your company.