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Increasingly, behavioral skills, such as integrity, are being valued as highly as technical competencies.
After all, characteristics like these are essential for healthy relationships between employees and other colleagues, ethics and lasting.
Without this quality, professionals tend to always want to take advantage and find it difficult to take responsibility for mistakes.
This behavior, a strong indication of a lack of integrity, can affect the corporate image with internal customers (suppliers, talent, etc.) and external customers.
Do you see how a lack of integrity can damage a job? Read on to find out what integrity is, its types, its importance, how to assess it and much more!
What is integrity?
Integrity is a characteristic of moral wholeness, where individuals are able to be totally honest and ethical without giving up their values.
For example, if they think it's wrong to receive a bank transfer by mistake, they return the money instead of keeping it, demonstrating integrity.
On the other hand, those who don't have as much integrity can easily give up this principle, depending on the circumstances.
Have you ever heard the popular expression "the occasion makes the thief"? She explains how context can show a person's true ethics and morals.
In other words, people with integrity have well-defined beliefs and convictions and always stick to them, whatever the circumstances. Thus, employees with integrity should not take advantage of any situation in the company because they perceive an opportunity to do so.
Types of integrity
Integrity can be divided into moral, physical, data, social, intellectual and personal. Find out more about each one:
- Moral integrity - as its name suggests, refers to someone's morale and dignity, which can be affected after public insults and humiliation, for example;
- Physical integrity - is about the health and quality of life of individuals, which can be affected after aggressions, accidents and other situations;
- Personal integrity - joins moral and physical integrity and becomes a broader concept;
- Data integrity - is the guarantee of information security and people's right to privacy with regard to personal data (as guided by the LGPD);
- Social integrity - is a quality aimed at living together in society, which should guarantee a sense of justice, solidarity and much more;
- Intellectual integrity - intended for freedom of expression, making it possible to give opinions, make suggestions and live without the risk of censorship.
How important is integrity in the business environment?
Integrity is important in the corporate environment because it prevents a series of unethical problems and even crimes, such as money laundering, for example.
In other words, several corporations have been denounced for corruptionThis is what happens with illegal acts to obtain advantages.
It is only natural that this affects the corporate image, making it known for corruption allegations and having the reputation stained.
As a result, many internal and external customers may be reluctant to join the company, jeopardizing the growth and profitability of the business.
Integrity is also important in everyday situations, which may not have the same repercussions as corruption scandals.
This is the case with HR conduct and managers upon receiving reports of harassment, equal pay for men and women, incentives to diversityhiring women, supporting pregnant employees, etc.
In each of the situations described, integrity in the business environment is essential. After all, this is the way for the company to be well regarded by suppliers, investors, customers and talent.
How do you assess the integrity of employees and future team members?
Given the impact that integrity can have on the corporate environment, it is important to assess the level of this quality in employees.
In this sense, there are tests that identify inappropriate attitudes and behavior, signaling a lack of integrity and the possibility of conflicts in the future.
However, if you assemble your team without passing the integrity test, your corporate culture could be negatively impacted. There are also legal risks.
After all, a lack of integrity contributes to cases of corruption and other behaviors that demonstrate a lack of morals. ethics.
For this reason, we at S2 Consultoria offer the PIR (Resilient Integrity Potential) integrity indicator.
It consists of an online measurement of people's potential for integrity in the face of ethical dilemmas that may arise in everyday corporate life.
As soon as you notice behavioral triggers in the participants, your company is alerted.
The test PIR has scientific validation on the market, is present all over the world and is available at languages such as Spanish, Portuguese and English.
Thus, language difficulties may not be a problem if your company wants to hire employees outside Brazil.
How to encourage integrity at work?
For professional integrity to be seen with the importance it deserves, your company needs to encourage it.
This can happen with the examples of professionals at higher hierarchical levels, which reflects on the type of conduct that is welcomed by others.
In addition, it is important to have regular training and lectures to refresh your knowledge of integrity and ethics issues.
After all, it's possible that over time, older employees will become complacent and even adopt unethical behavior because it's more advantageous.
How to deal with integrity problems at work?
Do you encourage integrity at work and even carry out tests to prevent the selection of professionals with such conduct? Even so, it's possible that not everyone has integrity and ethics.
In this case, you need to assess each situation to know what action to take, remain rational and don't take too long to make decisions.
Remember that the attitude you adopt will reflect on your employees' perception of how integrity is viewed by the company.
So, have you understood what integrity is and how important it is for successful corporate environments?
As you can see, this attitude demonstrates an attachment to values, which is essential when dealing with ethical dilemmas such as harassment, discrimination, expense handling, bribery, corporatism and much more.
