The following is a Guest Post from Grace Frenson
In business, strong ethics can do more than just improve the world for the better. They can also be evidence of a company that will do well over time, even if those ethics seem challenging to stick with at times.
The following five items are evidence of why having strong ethics leads to a healthy, profitable business. Ethics involve increasing trust, creating loyalty, and pursuing causes that will make the world a better place. All of these things are easy ways to prove your code of ethics is more than just a list on your website or in your office, but rather something your business puts into practice.
Increases Trustworthiness
If you have strong ethics, it may be easy to align your business with a variety of social or even moral causes, if you’re so inclined. This can lead to those that also support these causes or at least the values these causes represent, to view your brand as more memorable.
Over time, this may lead to more recommendations, something that will serve to enhance your marketing efforts with little input. Millennials, in particular, are a group that feels that they must make as much of a difference as possible. Showing that your business can do that, as long as it sticks around, can be an easy way to attract and retain this type of customer.
Creates More Loyal Customers
If a customer believes in the same causes and issues as your company does, they are more likely to stick with your brand. 94% of customers say they’re likely to remain loyal if your company offers complete transparency. As an ethical company, that transparency is a lot easier to provide.
Helps Develop a Positive Company Culture
When your business has strong ethics, it attracts more people and tends to retain them. People like to be local optimists. When their job does good things for them as well as on a local or national scale, they tend to stick with it.
For similar reasons to how strong values and ethics will make your customers stick around and be more vocal about your brand and its causes, employees tend to do the same.
Still, it’s worth remembering that while most ethics are non-negotiable, choosing the causes your business uses to demonstrate that code will take time and thought. You don’t want to start off in a tight position or offer something you won’t be able to follow through with.
In addition to retention, strong ethics can also help employees manage their own ethically troublesome decisions, decreasing problems all around. Everyone is easily influenced by their environment, and many spend the most time, consistently, in a work environment. Ensuring that there is a positive, ethically-sound culture in your business works to positively influence everyone involved with it.
Creates a Unified Brand Image
Branding is important. It’s hard to trust a brand that says one thing on their website and then supports a different cause or position on social media. Making sure your brand has a robust ethical code will give everyone involved a few keystones to craft your brand’s message around. This will help everything work together with more harmony.
Further, with stronger ethics, you can make sure that whatever unified image you present is one that indeed offers what your company is like. This also reduces the risk of being called out on lofty promises or for behavior that does not match up with your mission statement, etc.
The Knowledge That Your Business is Making a Difference
No matter what situation your business encounters, having a robust ethical code can help narrow down the possible options. Even if your company is looking for a bankruptcy lawyer because you refuse to cut corners, there is a chance your business will still come out of it for the better, after restructuring.
With all of the reasons given before this one, it should be easy to see how today, consumers of all stripes are looking for a company that aligns with their values. By developing a robust ethical code, you’re making it so your business can easily be seen as one that works for the better of the world at large or, at the very least, is refraining from making things worse.
While it might not seem like much, a little effort in the ethics department can provide all of these critical benefits and more. Over time, that little bit of effort will add up to help foster a healthier business and keep it profitable for now and in the more positive future that your business will help build future.