Communication skills and leadership. These are things employers would like from people who work for them. But out of all the qualities and abilities an employer could ask for, there’s one that’s expected to come with the goods: integrity.

When an employee displays behavior that’s to the contrary, it seems to burrow itself in an employer’s mind. Ten years ago, Joyce, a business owner in Ohio who didn’t want her name or company disclosed, nearly lost a large client because of what she describes as “unprofessional, unethical behavior” on the part of a senior level employee.

Joyce got a call from the client saying a chain letter had been sent in their company envelope and traced to Joyce’s company postage meter.

“This very senior employee had helped herself to some of the client’s envelopes that we keep a small supply on hand for their mailings, to send out a chain letter to 20 of her closest friends,” she says.

“I didn’t trust her after that. She never ask how she could make it up to the company and when she left I couldn’t help but wonder if she didn’t use our postage meter to send out her resume!”

When consultant Roger Herman discovered his sales person and two other workers had used his company’s office space and contacts to build a competing business on company time, he was flabbergasted. “I learned about this from a client who gave me a business card with the home address of one employee and the home phone number of the other!

“I fired the salesperson instantly and filed charges against her for theft when I discovered some floppy discs were missing. I escorted the marketing guy to the door. The administrative support person got suckered in by the other two.” Although she had been with him for years and he had recently purchased a new car for her as a bonus, he fired his trusted support person. This happened 12 years ago, and it’s “still fresh in my mind,” says Herman.

Lack of integrity can show up among co-workers. One of my clients told me an account executive at their firm claimed the commissions of her co-worker who was on maternity leave. This was after a policy was instituted stating someone on maternity leave would not lose their commissions. When the account executive was found out and called into the bosses’ office, she acknowledged her wrong-doing, then did it again a week later.

Another client told me how an attorney in his firm manipulated billing statistics in a way that made it look like he was generating more income than he was—at the expense of other employees.

As the integrity issue has become more prevalent in recent years thanks to such scandals at Enron, employers are conducting more intensive background checks. But, can you ever really know someone’s character?

Some companies now include interview questions that may shed light on values: “Have you ever been in a situation where you were asked to do something you knew was wrong?” They are similar to behavioral-based questions such as “What would you do if…” but aren’t based on the hypothetical.

When it comes to integrity, you either have it or you don’t. And when you don’t, people never seem to forget it.

© by Andrea Kay

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