As Published in Business 2 Business , July 2004

Cheating, Lies, and Other Workplace Ethics
By Ira S. Wolfe

Cheating: How can so many people be wrong if everybody is doing it?

The last few years have been extremely tough on business ethics. Headline grabbing stories about deceptive accounting practices, conflicts of interest, document shredding and retaliation against employees at Enron, MCI, TYCO, WorldCom among others have heightened interest in ethics and soured many employees on the integrity of business decision-makers.

But while employees are often quick to judge the behaviors of executives even when justified, it might be said that employees shouldn't be calling the kettle black.

Employee fraud is on the rise, soaring from $400 billion in lost revenue for U.S. businesses in 1996 to over $600 billion in 2003. And while many organizations have implemented background checking as a requirement for employment, the majority of employees who steal--68.6 percent, according to Association of Certified Fraud Examiners --have no prior criminal record.

It seems the American public is cheating at everything. How can it be wrong if everybody is doing it? The distinction between what's right and what's wrong is becoming blurred when it seems absolutely ok for accountants to cook the books because executives stretch the truth in sales and marketing.

We cheat—or at least try to cheat—in every aspect of our lives. One out of four Americans surveyed say it's acceptable to cheat on their taxes. Former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski sends paintings he bought to a New Hampshire address to cheat New York State out of the sales tax. Consumers cross state lines every day to purchase goods in a neighboring state to save taxes. Others win lotteries and money at casinos without claiming the income.

Deals are made and lost based on which vendor provides the best perks. A company which wants to win a contract because they have the best product and deliver the best service is at a distinct disadvantage when a competitor is offering box seats to the NCAA finals, Stanley Cup or Super Bowl. In sales this is just considered normal business, in accounting it's bribery.

Studies show that employees are spending approximately one-hour or more each day sending and reading personal emails, planning vacations, making medical and dental appointments, chasing down their parents and children, making arrangements for childcare and eldercare, and even surfing the web while on the clock.

And how many of us have experienced the wrath of a disgruntled employee who lashes out to you, the consumer, about the poor working conditions they have to endure while they're still on duty. What kind of ethics is this when an employee airs their dirty laundry in front of the customers while they continue to pick up a weekly paycheck?

While some employees are suspected of goofing off during regular working hours in order to get overtime work, it was recently published in the Wall Street Journal that supervisors in many organizations are altering employee time cards to avoid paying overtime and to keep their payrolls under budget so they can collect cost-cutting bonuses.

The workplace has become so competitive that ethical shenanigans are “taught” in colleges and high schools. College-bound students cheat on the SAT tests to get to the best schools. Teachers cheat by giving their students the answers so the teachers qualify for bonuses. Thirty percent of all college papers submitted have significant levels of plagiarism but one-half of all professors admitted to overlooking cheating.

Published on the CNN.com website following the airing of an April 4, 2004 program, the following “honor” students had this to say about cheating:

"I actually think cheating is good. A person who has an entirely honest life can't succeed these days."

"We students know that the fact is we are almost completely judged on our grades. They are so important that we will sacrifice our own integrity to make a good impression."

"I believe cheating is not wrong. People expect us to attend 7 classes a day, keep a 4.0 GPA, not go crazy and turn in all of our work the next day. What are we supposed to do, fail?"

During another recent television program on the subject of ethics, students admitted to cheating because “ You've got to do what you've got to do.”. One student felt that “cheating in school is a dress rehearsal for live.” Another defended his cheating by stating, “I'm not that smart so inorder to get a job, I cheat.” Others justified their cheating because it really didn't hurt anyone and they only cheated “ a little bit.”

People cheat today because they simply cannot get everything done which needs to be done. American life has become so intense and rushed, that cheating has just become a way of life. Many shortcuts students seek involve cheating like copying school papers from the Internet simply because kids don't have the time after playing sports, working to pay for their clothes, cars and sometimes tuition, and finding time for their family and friends. Their parents are cheating their employers by calling in sick so they can catch up on housework, errands, teacher meetings or shopping. Parents plan vacations during school and then get their doctor friends to write medical excuses for their children.

Some people cheat today not just because they want to get ahead, but more because they fear the embarrassment of failure. Parents put huge expectations on children—you are a failure if you don't go to college. Many children are taught that second place is the first place for losers. Companies put huge pressures on employees—you now have to do the job of two, or you will be laid off too. And American culture says again and again that you have to be successful and wealthy to be happy. Faced with this fear of being a failure, too many people seek a shortcut and falsify their resume, cheat on their SATs, or fudge numbers at work to look better.

Employees cheat to resist systems that silently measure their output. Teachers in schools are resistant to performance-based testing because it may threaten their jobs. Welfare advocates resist needs-based tests because they may remove some people from the rolls.

Others cheat because we've grown up in a world where we believe nothing is outside our reach. If you believe you deserve the best, you'll get it – one way or another. We have this sense of entitlement regardless of whether we've earned it or regardless of what means are used.

Every day, employees are faced with moral dilemmas at work. Ethics involves determining what is right or wrong in the workplace, then doing the right thing. Do you know if your employees know what is expected of them? Do your employees know the difference between right and wrong? How do you know if they will make the right choices when confronted with difficult decisions?

What can an organization do to set the record straight and run their business on the up and up? First of all, an organization committed to doing business ethically must reach (and teach) ethics beyond the most blatant violations like stealing, lying, and cheating. While conduct for the obvious must be stated, employees need clear expectations in how they should deal with what we call SUDs – seemingly unimportant decisions. SUDs are those little ethical exceptions we make for ourselves and then rationalize them away because they really don't hurt anyone or no one ever notices or everyone else does it.

Ethical employers want to ensure that their employees are above reproach but they must provide them more than lip service to what conduct they will tolerate. Tarnished by shady behavior in the executive suite, many once-solid companies are struggling to regain the confidence of their employees and customers. Management must do more then talk the talk. They must walk the walk.

Managers and employees alike must understand that perceptions are reality. It's like walking into a room with a group of strangers who are speaking a foreign language. If they look up at you and then talk among themselves, you'd swear they were talking about you. The same thing goes for ethics – while stealing client records or passing on trade secrets and cooking the books are obvious ethical violations, the shade gets a little grayer when discussions focus on personal emails on company time, promoting an unqualified employee just to get him/her out of your department, not hiring a person of color or religion because they wouldn't fit in, calling in sick to go shopping and so on and so on.

Managing ethics in business today is helping employees understand how to navigate the gray space.

Ira S. Wolfe is the founder of Success Performance Solutions and author of Understanding Business Values and Motivators ( www.understandingbvm.com ). He will be presenting Ethical Shenanigans on September 1, 2004 at The Lancaster Chamber's Small Business Group Breakfast.