6 Tips To Build An Ethical Business Culture
Your business ethics become the heart of your business and determine how you run it and how potential clients perceive you.
Here at Unruly, we strongly believe that every well-balanced business should adapt, not only a set of values but also an ethical culture.
Building an ethical business culture doesn’t happen overnight. You must consciously work towards it day after day.
It’s not always easy, especially when you’re afraid of how people may react.
In this post, we’re sharing 6 things you can do to ensure you’re actively building an ethical business culture.
Establish your brand pillars
Your brand pillars are what set you apart from other businesses and act as guiding principles for everything you do on behalf of your business.
Establishing your brand pillars is important because they give you clarity around your brand’s messaging framework which helps potential clients and customers emotionally connect with your brand.
When establishing your brand pillars, you want to get clear on:
What problem your business solves
Why you’re passionate about solving that problem
Who your business serves
Create strong brand pillars that will guide your business and showcase who your brand is and what you stand for.
Declare explicit values
One of the biggest mistakes we made in 2020 was hiring outside of our brand values, simply because we didn’t establish them early on.
Your business’ mission and vision statements, as well as your core values, can’t be just words on paper.
Below is a breakdown of what these statements mean and why they’re an important part of your business strategy.
Mission Statement
In a nutshell, your mission statement answers WHAT your business does, HOW it does it, and WHY. The purpose of this statement is to concisely describe your business’ reason for being.
Vision Statement
If your mission statement describes what your business does, your vision statement answers WHERE your business is going. Having a vision in place will ensure that you’re always working towards a specific goal.
Core Values
Your business’ core values become the principles that guide your business. They describe your business’ culture and attract both team members and clients who have the same values.
During your next CEO day, write down or revisit your mission and vision statements and core values. Getting clear and intentional on these will get you on the right track to designing an ethical business culture.
Commit to being an equitable, anti-racist company
Something that 2020 brought to the forefront for some of you, was the importance of speaking out against systemic racism.
After continued killings of Black Americans and ongoing police violence, many businesses both large and small made public statements against racism and delivered plans for how their business practices and charitable contributions would be changing moving forward.
The fight to build a more equitable, anti-racist nation is not over and the road to recovery is long (and hard).
It’s imperative that we continue to take the necessary steps to create change within our businesses.
Some ways that we can do this is by implementing ongoing training as well as learning from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultants & black experts in the field.
If you are interested in establishing anti-racist guiding principles, be sure to take this pledge.
Operate with honesty and transparency
Being honest and transparent about your business operations is critical in today’s Information Age.
Keep in mind that honesty and transparency are a two-way street. The same way you want to know what ingredients a restaurant uses to make your lunch bowl, your clients want to know that they can trust you.
Because people want to invest in businesses they trust, transparency in your business can lead to brand trust and loyalty.
In other words, incorporating honesty and transparency into your business will help you grow your client base while simultaneously designing an ethical business culture.
Become a community contributor
Part of building an ethical business culture is giving back to your community or causes that you’re passionate about.
Whether it’s with your time or financial contributions, be sure to stay actively involved in your community.
Have integrity
We’re all human, and at the end of the day, it’s very possible that we’ll make mistakes in our business.
When something goes wrong in your business, hold yourself accountable, and be transparent instead of trying to hide it.
The biggest takeaway here is to learn from your mistakes. Ask yourself where you went wrong and how you can avoid this mistake in the future.
Having integrity can do a lot for your business’ reputation and long-term success.
recap…
Remember that you build your business on your own terms, and abandoning ethics isn’t required to be successful.
If you’re ready to commit to building an ethical business culture, we hope these 6 tips will help you in your journey!
How are you working towards becoming a more ethical business? Share with us in the comments!
