It could be that Canada and the United States are both experiencing election years, but North America seems somewhat safer from the unethical behaviour of corporate and government leaders. Or maybe it’s just a case of so many people getting caught.
For HR professionals with mandates to create productive, respectful workplaces, the negative impact on morale caused by leaders taking greed and corruption to new heights undermines the very goal of improving worker productivity. No one is going to put in effort when all the profits end up being stolen. A parade of CEOs facing judges and juries, and an unearthing of the “rules” political masters are playing by, may be just what’s needed to put integrity into the workplace.
Canadians need look no further than the federal Liberal party’s sponsorship scandal for insight into what working for federal departments or Crown agencies can be like — facts thousands of employees already know too well.
Prime Minister Paul Martin’s support for whistle-blower legislation is an admission that many federal employees are uncomfortable with the ethical lapses of their superiors, but too afraid to speak out. Former Via Rail chair Jean Pelletier, a top aid to former Prime Minister Jean Chretien who was rewarded for his years of service with the Via job, is a good case study. With the heat on about the Crown corporation’s involvement in the scandal, Pelletier struck out at former employee turned whistle-blower Myriam Bédard, referring to her in the media as a “pitiful” single mom. The inexplicable and ill-advised attack on Bédard, a nationally popular Olympic gold medalist, got Pelletier fired. What happens to less glamorous staff without Bédard’s pedigree?
Cataloguing the growing list of powerful people ensnared in the scandal isn’t feasible in a bi-weekly column. The list of culprits grows daily.
HR departments seeking to revitalize morale can only hope for an end to the appointment of political cronies to plum roles at Crown agencies.
Running parallel to Canada’s political scandal is a parade of once-powerful executives, from corporate giants like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, facing the music in court for taking their own companies to the cleaners.
Then there’s Martha Stewart, who damaged her company and therefore employees’ future, through a personal lapse in ethics, namely insider trading to save $60,000 on a bad stock. What galls the average working Joe/Jane (people HR is trying to mobilize for the corporate good) is that Stewart wasn’t content with the billions of dollars she already had.
There’s also quasi-Canadian Conrad Black who suffered his own court defeat, when a U.S. judge blocked the sale of Hollinger Inc, the parent of Hollinger International Inc, on the basis it would have harmed the interests of investors in Hollinger International. The backdrop to all this is the investigation of alleged improper payments to Black and other Hollinger executives. The court decision is a victory for minority investors over the will of a powerful leader.
A new age of activist shareholders will put corporate ethics under the microscope. And Canadians can hope that an end to Chretien-era politics has arrived.
Is this finally it? Has North America turned a corner in corporate ethics? It would be naive to think this is the end to greed and the pursuit of power, but maybe this is a chance to shove the line back a bit and raise standards. For HR it’s a chance to help the organization clean up its act, recruit and develop with ethical behaviour in mind and score one for the organization’s future.
For HR professionals with mandates to create productive, respectful workplaces, the negative impact on morale caused by leaders taking greed and corruption to new heights undermines the very goal of improving worker productivity. No one is going to put in effort when all the profits end up being stolen. A parade of CEOs facing judges and juries, and an unearthing of the “rules” political masters are playing by, may be just what’s needed to put integrity into the workplace.
Canadians need look no further than the federal Liberal party’s sponsorship scandal for insight into what working for federal departments or Crown agencies can be like — facts thousands of employees already know too well.
Prime Minister Paul Martin’s support for whistle-blower legislation is an admission that many federal employees are uncomfortable with the ethical lapses of their superiors, but too afraid to speak out. Former Via Rail chair Jean Pelletier, a top aid to former Prime Minister Jean Chretien who was rewarded for his years of service with the Via job, is a good case study. With the heat on about the Crown corporation’s involvement in the scandal, Pelletier struck out at former employee turned whistle-blower Myriam Bédard, referring to her in the media as a “pitiful” single mom. The inexplicable and ill-advised attack on Bédard, a nationally popular Olympic gold medalist, got Pelletier fired. What happens to less glamorous staff without Bédard’s pedigree?
Cataloguing the growing list of powerful people ensnared in the scandal isn’t feasible in a bi-weekly column. The list of culprits grows daily.
HR departments seeking to revitalize morale can only hope for an end to the appointment of political cronies to plum roles at Crown agencies.
Running parallel to Canada’s political scandal is a parade of once-powerful executives, from corporate giants like Enron, WorldCom and Tyco, facing the music in court for taking their own companies to the cleaners.
Then there’s Martha Stewart, who damaged her company and therefore employees’ future, through a personal lapse in ethics, namely insider trading to save $60,000 on a bad stock. What galls the average working Joe/Jane (people HR is trying to mobilize for the corporate good) is that Stewart wasn’t content with the billions of dollars she already had.
There’s also quasi-Canadian Conrad Black who suffered his own court defeat, when a U.S. judge blocked the sale of Hollinger Inc, the parent of Hollinger International Inc, on the basis it would have harmed the interests of investors in Hollinger International. The backdrop to all this is the investigation of alleged improper payments to Black and other Hollinger executives. The court decision is a victory for minority investors over the will of a powerful leader.
A new age of activist shareholders will put corporate ethics under the microscope. And Canadians can hope that an end to Chretien-era politics has arrived.
Is this finally it? Has North America turned a corner in corporate ethics? It would be naive to think this is the end to greed and the pursuit of power, but maybe this is a chance to shove the line back a bit and raise standards. For HR it’s a chance to help the organization clean up its act, recruit and develop with ethical behaviour in mind and score one for the organization’s future.
