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I believe a code of ethics, or a guideline to manage the behavior of employees, should be enforced in all businesses regardless of size. These guidelines allow companies to create responsibility and integrity. Enforcing and rewarding ethical behavior is equally important as creating the code of ethics. There are a few things to keep in mind when rewarding ethical behavior in the workplace, including whether to reward the person publicly or privately. Communicate with employees what ethical behaviors are expected. Be consistent so that rules apply to everyone in the workplace. Let employees know how they should act before you can reward them for their behavior. Create a suggestions box so employees can remain anonymous while acknowledging other workers' ethical behavior in a short note. Write a thank you note to employees who exhibit ethical behavior. Supervisors can also acknowledge these individuals by saying "thank you" in public or private, depending on what is appropriate. Acknowledge employees for their ethical behavior in a meeting or at lunch in front of other employees if it is appropriate to do it publicly. Develop an incentive program for all eligible employees. This could include small prizes, a free dinner or even a day off. Gift Basket ; An incentive program can reward employees who exceed sales goals or have outstanding accomplishments. Put a gift basket together and fill it with popcorn, candy and a gift certificate to the movies. Or, place an inexpensive bottle of wine into a gift basket with a gift card to a local restaurant. You can also consider giving gift baskets filled with candy and lottery tickets to employees for birthdays, including a voucher to leave work two hours early one day that month. Gym Membership; Provide your employees with a discount--or even free--membership to a local gym. Encouraging physical activity habits can help employees stay healthy and motivated. Employees who spend eight hours a day sitting at a desk could use the gym membership to maintain an active lifestyle. According to the Puget Sound Business Journal, a study performed by the University of Michigan Health Management Research Center showed that a dollar spent yearly on employee health programs saved companies three dollars due to decreased employee sick days and health care costs. Thank You Jars You can place a clear Mason jar on every employee's desk or workspace and let them decorate the jars. Managers can drop anonymous thank-you notes in the jars to reward a job well done. Also, employees can leave notes to thank someone else for helping them accomplish a task, assist a customer or even troubleshoot a computer problem. This type of incentive provides a more personal reward that can inspire employees to help each other and recognize the importance of working together as a team. Free Vacation In tough economic times, it may be hard for employers to offer continual raises to every employee. Instead, consider holding a contest for employees where the winner receives a free vacation. Consult a travel agency ahead of time to find good deals on plane tickets and hotels. The incentive to win the contest will increase employee productivity, which provides a return on your investment in the prize. A 2009 study by Oxford Economics found that incentive vacations are more affordable than cash incentives and have a positive influence on employee satisfaction and efficiency. VIP Parking; Create a simple and free employee incentive by designating a VIP parking space in the parking lot of your company. Choose a spot close to the building's entrance and label the spot as reserved. You can assign a different employee to this reserved parking spot each month on a rotating basis. Besides being of no cost to you, this type of incentive rewards every employee, not just the overachievers. The VIP parking space assures every employee that they are valuable to the company and makes sure nobody gets overlooked. Determining the best way to discipline an unethical employee can be tricky. Many employers are unsure of how to simultaneously inflict the appropriate consequences and maintain the employee's interest in future compliance. Effectively disciplining an unethical employee is best accomplished by maintaining a logical mindset and placing confidence in your ability to intervene. Examine why the incident occurred to assess the significance of the employee's behavior. Consider his past and determine whether or not the incident aligns with his usual behavior patterns. This will prevent you from looking beyond the employee's positive contributions to the company and enable you to trust in his potential as a part of your team. Talk with the employee, not at him. Although harsh and impersonal treatment may intimidate an employee into compliance, his submission will most likely be short-lived and he may resume the behavior once he feels that he can get away with it. Regard yourself and your employee as members of the same team and work together to solve the problem that has surfaced. SWOT Analysis in-depth look at the company's internal strengths and weaknesses and its external opportunities and threats. This is commonly called a SWOT analysis. Developing a clear understanding of resource strengths and weaknesses, an organization's best opportunities, and its external threats allows the planning team to draw conclusions about how to best allocate resources in light of the firm's internal and external situation. This also produces strategic thinking about how to best strengthen the organization's resource base for the future. Looking internally, there are several key areas that must be analyzed and addressed. This includes identifying the status of each existing line of business and unused resources for prospective additions; identifying the status of current tracking systems; defining the organization's strategic profile; listing the available resources for implementing the strategic thrusts that have been selected for achieving the newly defined mission; and an examining the current organizational culture. The external investigation should look closely at competitors, suppliers, markets and customers, economic trends, labor-market conditions, and governmental regulations. In conducting this query, the information gained and used must reflect a current state of affairs as well as directions for the future. The result of a performance audit should be the establishment of a performance gap, that is, the resultant gap between the current performances of the organization in relation to its performance targets. To close this gap, the planning team must conduct what is known as a gap analysis, the next step in the strategic planning process. My main aspect of my monitoring program would be receiving weekly updates from my managers and supervisors of their employees and financial status. Explain your perceptions of the violation clearly and specifically and address why you feel that the consequences are appropriate. Being distant and casual will give the employee an excuse to resent you and diminish any intrinsic motivation to comply with your rules. Consider the specific employee in need of correction to determine the best way to address her lack of compliance. Discipline methods that inspire change in one employee may be perceived as no big deal by another, so it is important to carry through with discipline that will prevent any future deviance. Although you should be firm in your discipline, do not be too harsh; employees who regard your treatment as unfair may abandon their hopes of meeting your expectations altogether. Encourage open communication, now and in the future. Do not let your emotions influence impulsive determinations and hinder your ability to think logically. Employees who feel safe communicating with authority figures are more likely to respect their opinions and consider their perspective when faced with a similar decision in the future.