Ethics training in the workplace: An overview

Abstract

Ethics training for employees is a key process that ensures an ethical workplace environment. Different ethics training workshops have been increasingly implemented for enhancing employees’ ethical decision making and workplace behavior, particularly when facing ethical dilemmas. However, the implementation of these workshops has to be associated with effectiveness in order to pursue the desired outcomes. In this context, this overview focuses on ethics training workshops as important tools in the workplace, their aims, and their extent of implementation. Particular emphasis is given to the different types of ethics training workshops, which rely on the enforcement of ethical culture, code of conduct, decision-making, and self-awareness principles. Such enforcement is empirically and theoretically proven to enhance employees’ ethical behavior and to create an ethical workplace environment. The communication media used in these workshops and their effects over time are also discussed. Moreover, the present overview assesses the effectiveness of these workshops over time based on various literature studies. Such assessment highlights the important role of organizations in ensuring the persistence of ethics training effects over time through follow ups of employees’ ethical behavior post-training.