Doing business ethically in a time of coronavirus
Our Chair, Prof. David Grayson CBE discusses doing business ethically in a time of coronavirus in the latest IBE blog.
06 April 2020
What is the ethical issue?
Effective health and safety procedures can reduce workplace injuries, which are a source of lost time, lost money for the employer and employees, as well as an administrative drain. Workplace security can protect your business against theft, while also guarding the safety of your staff against incursions of violence.
Safety refers to procedures and other matters taken to keep workers from being injured or getting sick. Security overlaps safety somewhat because it can also mean protecting workers from injury, but it is broader and refers to other threats as well, such as sexual harassment and theft.
IBE Guidance
A summary of good practice
- Organisations should set measurable Health, Safety, Security & Environmental (HSSE) performance targets in their business plans which they are committed to fulfilling. Personal and process safety is about more than following rules.
- Everyone has a responsibility to be alert to safety risks as they go about their daily tasks. Nothing is so important that time cannot be taken to ensure that it is done safely.
- It should be every organisation's intention that everyone goes home safely - every day, everywhere. All operations must be conducted in compliance with applicable health and safety laws and regulations, company standards and best practice. This means that, in some parts of the world, organisational standards may be higher than local laws.
Further resources
Now is the right time to look at your culture
Ethical failures in business continue to happen with depressing regularity. Unfortunately, many organisations are only spurred to look at their culture and take the steps to embed ethical values at the heart of their decision making after things have gone badly wrong and customers, shareholders and colleagues have suffered as a result.
05 February 2020
Business Ethics in the News 2019
This briefing provides an overview of the ethical concerns and lapses that were recorded by the IBE in its monitoring of media coverage in 2019. It gives an overview of which sectors and issues related to business ethics were most covered in the news. For 2019, we have recorded a total of 361 different stories involving lapses of companies with a UK presence.
29 January 2020
Ethics at Work 2018: Germany
This survey report describes the German findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with the European average from the eight countries surveyed.
10 December 2019
Ethics at Work 2018: Italy
This survey report describes the Italian findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with the European average from the eight countries surveyed.
10 December 2019
Ethics at Work: Singapore
This survey report describes the Singapore findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with Switzerland and the UK.
23 September 2019
Ethics at Work 2018: Canada
This survey report describes the Canadian findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with Switzerland and the UK.
26 June 2019
Ethics at Work 2018: Switzerland
This survey report describes the Swiss findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with the European average.
23 May 2019
Ethics and values are at the heart of a sustainable culture
David Grayson: I am delighted to take on the chairmanship of IBE. Ethics and values are at the heart of creating a sustainable culture.
02 April 2019
A Year In Review: Ethical Concerns and Lapses 2018
Read the IBE's annual analysis of business ethics news stories from the last year - which were the sectors and issues most in the news in 2018?
30 January 2019
Ethics at Work 2018: New Zealand
This survey report describes the New Zealand findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research.
28 November 2018
Ethics at Work 2018: Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom
This survey report describes the Australia and New Zealand findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and compares them with the findings from the UK.
27 November 2018
Ethics at Work 2018: Australia
This survey report describes the Australian findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research.
27 November 2018
Ethics at Work 2018: Portugal
This survey report describes the Portugese findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with the European average from the eight countries surveyed.
19 November 2018
Ethics at Work 2018: United Kingdom
This survey report describes the UK findings of our 2018 Ethics at Work research and provides comparison with the European average from the eight countries surveyed.
13 September 2018
Ethics at Work: 2018 Survey of Employees: Europe
Ethics at Work: 2018 survey of employees analyses the results of the survey and examines whether formal ethics programmes are effective in embedding ethical values into organisational culture and influencing behaviour.
05 July 2018
Beyond Law: Ethical culture and GDPR
What are the wider ethical implications of GDPR? How can an organisation’s values be embedded and monitored so that the new regulation becomes a measure of those, rather than simply a set of compliance rules that must be ticked off?
30 May 2018
Ethics is everybody's business
How can you support large numbers of employees in multiple locations in doing the right thing? One approach is to spread a network of ethics ambassadors throughout the business – it is an excellent way to ensure that messages about ethics and conduct are communicated effectively, consistently and meaningfully to staff in multiple territories.
18 April 2018
Corporate Ethics Policies and Programmes: 2016 UK and Continental Europe survey
This triennial survey provides an overview of how ethics is embedded within large organisations that operate in the UK and Continental Europe.
26 January 2017