Have you overheard any comments like these at work?
⛔ “That’s not fair.”
⛔ “Well, of course the top sales guy wasn’t fired for that infraction. But if it was anyone else…”
⛔ “How does the COO get away with treating her employees like that? If we did that, we’d be out on the street!”
Those statements are indicative of a culture that doesn’t take organizational justice seriously. And unfortunately, if they sound familiar…
Source: Making the Cut, Amazon Studios via Giphy
Organizational justice refers to employees’ perceptions of fairness in the workplace, and as a compliance pro, it should be supremely important to you.
If employees believe that higher-ups can get away with things just because they’re higher-ups or that people in certain departments aren't held to the same standard, then trust in the organization erodes… morale plummets… people don’t speak up… Then in return, your compliance program doesn’t work. Ouch. 😖
And if your program doesn’t work, the comments we mentioned above will devolve into this:
🛑 “Well, nothing is going to change, so I might as well update my resume and start looking.”
🛑 “Why should I bother speaking up? The leadership team isn’t going to address the issue.”
🛑 “I’m just going to keep my head down, get my work done, and shut up.”
First, determine if you even have a problem with organizational justice. In most cases, comments like the above will naturally make their way to you. However, if you’re still unsure:
Then, once you’ve asked the questions and analyzed the data, you can begin to improve organizational justice as needed. The team at Volkov Law nicely summarize how to do this with five essential principles:
Maintaining organizational justice is critical, but can be time consuming. If you’re looking for guidance or would like to talk about how we can help, reach out to us! Our Compliance Advisory provides tailored guidance, and Compliance Design Club has expertly-crafted tools to help your managers promote justice. Get started with a mini-module to help create a speak-up culture, a flowchart that shows what really happens when you contact the helpline, and an infographic on how managers can foster a speak up culture.
Whether your organizational culture is top-notch or needs help getting off the ground, we’re here for you!