Unethical conduct down, whistleblower retaliation rising 1

[lacajun]

The 2011 survey found a record 34% of employees have a negative view of their supervisors’ ethics, and the survey found 42% of companies have weak ethics cultures, an increase of seven points from 2009.

http://blogs.wsj.com/corruption-cur...isconduct-but-more-reporting-and-retaliation/

The full survey can be downloaded from

http://www.ethics.org.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[casseopeia]

I skimmed the first few pages and became a bit irritated with the report. Maybe it's too late at night, or I'm just cranky, but I'm having a problem with some of the conclusions right off the bat. The report states, "the percentage of employees who witnessed misconduct at work fell to a new low of 45%", and "retaliation against employee whistleblowers rose sharply."

The executive summary treats these two statements as if it is a surprise you can have both in the same testing period, and not as if they are cause and effect. I think the retaliation has had the intended effect by removing or quashing the vocal few and that's why there is less misconduct being reported.

The second thing I have a problem with is the overreaching assumption that the economy is doing so much better. I don't think it's doing very well at all. I think it's election year propaganda.

And the third thing I have a problem with, that unbelievably smooth looking photo of Patricia Harned. It's never good to photoshop yourself into Japanese Anime. Sheesh!

I'll have another look at this when I'm not as worked up I guess. There is probably some really valuable information here.

"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump

 

[SNORGY]

The only problem I have with the article is the coincidental reinforcement of one of my pet peeves, namely, the existence of a "1-800-I-SQUEAL" society.

In a lot of cases, I suspect that for every person spending 5 unauthorized or non-productive minutes on the internet, there are two people each spending 5 unauthorized minutes spying on him / her, ten non-productive minutes whining about it amongst themselves, and twenty non-productive minutes complaining to HR and bosses about it.

Of course, inappropriate internet activity at work (insider trading, surfing porn sites...) should always be reported, but most of the time it's just much to do about nothing.

Apart from obvious breach of ethics and inappropriate conduct, the acid test is always whether or not the work is getting done.

Regards,

SNORGY.

 

[ewh]

I don't want to download this at work, but the WSJ artical does point out the cause and effect relationship - "Further, those reporting misconduct are increasingly facing retaliation... Almost one-fourth of those reporting bad behavior said they experienced some form of retaliation, up from 15% in 2009 and only 12% in 2007."
I have to agree strongly with Cass about the effect of election year propaganda regarding the economy. I laughed out loud on the way into work this morning when NPR reported how much unemployment had dropped... a good thing I didn't bring my coffee with me. It helps not to think about workers who no longer qualify for UI, or the tricks done with the CES Birth Death model to tweek the numbers. It seems that everything reported by the MSM about the economy anymore consists of smoke and mirrors, once you actually look into how the numbers are arrived at (I think that there may be some economists moonlighting as climatologists, or visa-versa). Looks to be a good day on Wall Street though!
Also, it seems only logical not to trust any "in-house" ethics hotline... all they serve to do is give advanced warning that a better job at obfuscation needs to be done.


Technically, the glass is always full.

 

[lacajun]

I don't care to comment about their interpretation of the survey. Rarely do people understand numbers. It struck a nerve because I've been retaliated against multiple times in my career just trying to get my blankety-blank job done and steer clear of trouble.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[IRstuff]

"when NPR reported how much unemployment had dropped"

There's nothing new here; it's been that way since the Reagan administration decided to drop the those that gave up, because the unemployment numbers looked so bad during his first term.

TTFN
faq731-376

 

[jmw]

Yes and you don't even have to be a whistle-blower for management to mark your card.
The curious fact is that governments love whistleblowers who sneak on oildy water discharges from bilge tanks by ships and actively encourage it in everything except government.
Then they talk about leaks and leak enquiries and are desperate to track down and terminate any whistle blowers who let the public know what they've been up to e.g. the UK MP's expenses scandal.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jgailla]

I think the unemployment numbers are somewhat accurate if compared to the rates over the last twenty or so years.
Unemployment rates are subject to many manipulations, but a comparison of this year to last year or ten years ago is fairly valid.
Employment rates do seem to be getting better according to the little anecdotal evidence that I have.
Not the the worst is necessarily over in the U.S., but things are a little better than they were one year ago and two years ago, at least in north Florida where I am.
The posts on this website indicate that things are improving slightly.
There are also retail sales numbers, again subject to manipulation, but showing an uptick compared to the last two years.

 

[bridgebuster]

I've come up with a way of forecasting unemployment: Commuting time.

In 2009 my commuting time decreased over 20% and it hasn't changed since.

 

[casseopeia]

I did a whole lot of poking around ethics.org website and finally found a separate report that at least gave me an idea of what was considered to be misconduct.

http://www.ethics.org/files/u5/WhistleblowerWP.pdf

What is disturbing about the the 2011 misconduct report is that it does not break down types of misconduct, even in their methodology document. Checking your facebook account is seemingly treated with the same weight as falsifying reports and lying to clients. To their credit, they do go a bit more into detail about the types of retaliation suffered by whistleblowers.

Another weakness in this report I found is that their requirements for participation in the survey includes, 'currently employed', which means that you automatically exclude workers who may have witnessed and reported or complained about misconduct and were terminated as a result. I think this automatically skews the results of this survey.

The catch-phrase title captures my own personal situation perfectly despite the sloppiness of their scientific method.

"Gorgeous hair is the best revenge." Ivana Trump

 

[lacajun]

The catch-phrase title captures my own personal situation perfectly despite the sloppiness of their scientific method.{/quote]

That is what captured my attention. Analysis of the article aside, many experience retaliation in the workplace. Bullies don't know boundaries, which is one of their fundamental problems. Heck, they probably don't know what a bully is and that they are one.

I suspect most of the ethics problems are not reported. The places I had severe problems with ethics did not have ethics training but they sure thought they were ethical. By the standard of the law, they were not.

I went through ethics training during E-Week and heard some stark reminders of what not to do.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[spongebob007]

"Checking your facebook account is seemingly treated with the same weight as falsifying reports and lying to clients."

I would also go further to say that someone who is rartting out their coworkers for using facebook on company time or some other seemingly minor violation of comapny policy is a tattletale and not a whistleblower. Maybe if these busybodies just minded their own business and concentrated on getting their work done they wouldn't be getting the cold shoulder from their peers (who now see them as a rat) or thier bosses (who probably see them as whining busybodies). Personally I mind my own damn business. If one of my coworkers wants to surf porn sites on the web during business hours I could care less as long as it isn't directly impacting my ability to get my work done. My feeling about tattletales is that they are basically incompetent and the only way they can make themselves look good is by making others look bad. If you are busy doing your own work you don't have time to watch what your coworkers are doing.