Resilience and Workforce Integrity

Resilience and workforce integrity are strongly associated. In the last few years, we have witnessed a major shift in workplace environments due to the pandemic and economic globalization. Thus, the employers’ focus has gradually moved from a goal-driven environment to a resilient workplace. 

Although resiliency has gained considerable popularity, most employers fail to build a resilient workforce. 

Reason: lack of awareness of diversity and workforce integrity. 

After spending years in a stringent, efficiency-centered work environment, my idea of workforce integrity, based on my personal experience, was vastly different. Then came a time when I came across a leadership team with a solid moral code. To them, goal fulfillment is not everything. In fact, to my surprise, their workforce is their greatest strength, and that is why they strive to make everyone feels seen, heard, and is able to grow. 

This core value changed my notion of healthy work culture. 

Coming from a confined and goal-driven work environment to a positive and open work culture affects how employees perform. 

In fact, workforce integrity establishes trust and influences productivity and long-term motivation among your employees. The truth is many employees foster a positive mindset when there is an open work environment that promotes strong work ethics, core values focused on resiliency and integrity, and not productivity. Let’s see how workforce integrity plays a vital role in building a resilient and confident workforce. 

Why is Integrity Important in the Workplace?

If you ask your employees about their opinion on “integrity” at work, their responses may vary depending on their values and attitudes. Integrity is one of the fundamental values that define an organization’s culture, but it goes far beyond mere work environments to form a behavioral norm. Integrity means that you’re doing the right thing not just for yourself but for people around you. And integrity is fundamentally based on your core values, not your own interests. In fact, workplace integrity means your employees are dependable even when the environment is not favorable. 

How to Promote Integrity in the Workplace? 

Encourage Collaboration and Communication: 

Workplace collaboration is a philosophical and practical way to highlight teamwork, equal involvement, and innovative ideas as ways for companies to promote themselves. Your team’s effectiveness depends on your company’s culture and the values that the culture promotes. A business leader’s values, ethics, beliefs, and habits determine their colleagues’, managers’, and clients’ experiences. Workforce integrity encourages an ethically sound approach to decision-making. As an essential foundation of your team’s behavior, ethics are just as important in your decision-making as they are in your business dealings. This usually happens when you’re creating or implementing new products or taking steps to introduce new business strategies to serve customers better. Most importantly, ethical decision-making is beneficial for promoting a positive mindset in the workplace. 

Value Diversity In The Workplace: 

Diversity at work means hiring employees from all across the industry and from different parts of the world. Believe it or not, a diverse workforce is essential for businesses to thrive in an increasingly globalized world. It is possible that even in one country, there may be different ethnic groups who would benefit from goods or services coming from other countries. Each employee brings their culture and core values to the workplace and thus, contributing to building a diverse work culture. In short, diversity helps improve the integrity and profitability of any business. 

Promote Workforce-Focused Business Policies:

Workforce-focused policies can help you learn best practices from the behavior of the staff to dress codes. Following company policy can ensure that you make logical decisions based upon company goals and values. Make a change and implement it in phases. We all know that most people want changes but hesitate to take risks. Employees who maintain their integrity can also go beyond their capacity to support others. Such policies will establish your business values that will go a long way. 

How Integrity Helps a Business? 

Helps Building Strong, Resilient Employees: 

When an employee displays integrity in the workplace, they follow organizational guidelines and procedures at all times. This also makes them strong and resilient and changes their approach towards work, collaboration with colleagues, and customers. 

Promotes Inclusivity: 

Including everyone in the company’s success will ensure every employee gets the best possible results efficiently and effectively. Such favorable work conditions can contribute to healthy work culture and the establishment of integrity in the workplace. 

Better Leaders: 

Leadership is another reason why it’s crucial to promote workplace integrity. Good leaders pass organizational core values on to their teams. When a manager practices a moral mindset, their employees will practice an ethical mindset eventually. Without a doubt, integrity helps in nurturing better leaders. 

Helps Foster An Open And Positive Team: 

Employees who work with integrity and value are more likely to express their own opinions and share ideas with others. Similarly, having an ethical culture in work results in happier employees. If your employees enjoy working for you, they’ll be able to keep up their spirits and stay optimistic even when things get tough. 

Understanding and Measuring Risk Culture 

Before making any changes to improve your risk management strategy, you should first assess your organization’s current situation. An organization based on a strong culture with a risk management strategy responds well to three mutually beneficial drivers: risk mindset, risk practices, and contributive behaviors. While risk mindsets are defined as an individual’s beliefs about challenges within an organization, risk practices are determined by their daily actions taken within the company. 

Addressing Risk-Culture Shortcomings

Measurable risk culture results enable companies to identify weaknesses within their work cultures. The leadership team may identify the strengths and weaknesses of their employees and use them to determine an intervention plan for each employee and/or department based on their individual/team needs. The intervention may affect your entire company, including a policy change, training, pay raise, and new hiring. A group-based approach works best and can be managed through dedicated teams or staff. 

Prepping For Risk-Culture Success

A comprehensive risk-management strategy doesn’t mean that a complete risk-management plan is necessary. Risk-culture programs share several characteristics that leaders must put in to ensure success. Organizations that foster a risk and integrity culture are better positioned to effectively serve their clients and communities while avoiding potentially catastrophic risks. 

The future of work requires organizations worldwide to adapt their workforces and workplaces to deal with global challenges, which could cause massive societal and economic disruptions. It will help employees become more resilient, and with digital technologies, they can easily manage their work and personal lives. Such an approach will drive their behaviors and assist them in delivering a timely response to issues. Plus, it improves your workforces’ productivity and psychological safety in the long run. 

Launching a Risk-Culture Program for Workplace Integrity 

Risks often arise in an environment where there are multiple triggering factors. Leading companies take proactive measures to protect their risk cultures during normal times, global crises, and major organizational changes. Strong risk culture is crucial to institutional resilience against such challenges. Companies that develop a proven risk and integrity management culture often outperform their peers even during a crisis. Businesses with a risk-averse culture are less likely to suffer from self-inflicted failures and operational downfalls and cultivate a resilient workforce.

By Chitra Goel

Courtesy of Axiom

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