What is Ethical HR and what’s in it for Employers?

With changes to the way people think about and choose their employer, ethical management is becoming more important to all businesses, and crucial to some. Ethical HR isn’t about inaction, or being ‘soft’, and in fact, it can give real competitive advantage for your business.

Ethical HR can include:

• Having agreed organisational values that staff are aware of, and that are upheld and acted on by the business when making decisions.
• Being committed to honest communication and employee engagement. Engagement can deliver massive business benefits: from increased productivity and efficiency, generating innovation, reducing the costs of turnover and hiring, or increasing the reach of positive ‘word-of-mouth’ or social media marketing within your wider customer community.
• Staying open to feedback. Employees want the opportunity to give ideas and be part of improving processes and the work environment. This should reduce the number of issues in implementing change and give rise to fewer formal grievance and disciplinary processes to manage.
• Saying thank you – people want to feel valued.
• Not tolerating rude, discourteous or disrespectful behaviour.
• Seeking a diverse workforce – in a competitive recruitment market, the more diverse the pool we can attract applicants from, the more likely we are to find the talent we need.
• Acting ethically when we have to take tough decisions, like redundancy – e.g. by delivering bad news in the way we would want it delivered to ourselves, we best protect the future and reputation of the business for those who remain within it.
• Handling sensitive employee data appropriately.
• Staying on the right side of the law to maintain a positive reputation as an ethical employer will help you to compete to attract talent to your business.
• Having a well thought out and employee powered Corporate Social Responsibility policy.

We believe good ethics are good for business. In November 2016 we were announced as the UK Law Firm of the Year at the British Legal Awards. We’re the first large law firm in the UK to give all eligible members of staff an equal share in its profits. In the year to April 2016 we also saw revenues rise by 18% to nearly £18m (after increases of 12% and 13% in the two preceding years).

Do also watch our video clip: https://tinyurl.com/ybv4mfj9