When Rules Are Not Enough

By Carole Robinson Oliver

Photo: Bill Rankin

Like any other federal department, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) has masses of guidelines, directives and standard operating procedures, covering all kinds of conceivable situations. But sometimes employees can still find themselves in an ethical grey area, where “going by the book” doesn’t provide the answers.

Examples of ethical dilemmas abound:

• loyalty to your team or to a colleague versus loyalty to the organization;
• being torn between upholding the ethics of your own professional group and carrying out procedures required by the organization; or,
• trying to balance the desire for open communication with privacy requirements.

“We expect people to adhere to the rules,” says Stephen Wilson, Director General, Values and Ethics,“but rules alone may not address all situations nor will they always provide answers when competing values are in play.”

Ethics Means Doing the Right Thing

He adds that ethics means much more than adherence to laws and policies.“To me,it means doing the right thing. For example, if you obey the law, are you an ethical person? Many people would say ‘I’m an ethical person because I don’t break the law and I don’t harm anyone.’ But the truth is if you obey the law, it means you’re not a criminal, but it doesn’t mean you’re an ethical person.”

In 2001, Stephen Wilson was chosen to attend an ethics training program in Dallas, Texas. He used what he learned to help develop a three day Ethics and Corrections course for the Correctional Management Learning Centre in Cornwall, Ontario.He has been a course facilitator since then, in addition to taking on the position of director general when the Values and Ethics Branch was created in 2006.

Stephen Wilson brings to the job a 30 year background in corrections, much of it in the area of internal audit. His work took him into every corner of CSC, including investigations into allegations of wrongdoing. He was also responsible for implementing the CSC Internal Disclosure Policy (known more familiarly as whistleblowing).

“Values and ethics have always been important within corrections,”he says,“but we reached a point where the organization felt it was time to establish a separate unit that could focus completely on these matters.”

The major functions of Stephen Wilson’s group are handled by three offices — the Office of Values and Ethics, the Office of Internal Disclosure and the Office of Informal Conflict Management (see pp. 6, 7, 8).

Part of the impetus for a branch dedicated to values and ethics came from the 2005 Public Service Employee Survey, which identified serious concerns in the workplace relating to harassment, grievances, accountability, lack of trust and respect. An action plan, codeveloped with union leaders, is now being implemented, with a series of parallel but related initiatives designed to improve labour relations and conflict management within CSC.

Respect and Common Courtesy

“What upsets employees most in an organization is how they are treated by others,” Stephen Wilson points out.“It’s surprising how many people can recall an incident in school where they were called names or singled out by their peers.People want a work environment where they are shown respect and common courtesy.”

When Stephen Wilson took over the branch, the ethics course in Cornwall had already been successfully operating for several years, but it was only reaching out to a small number of staff, mostly managers.

“I felt there was a strong need to take ethics down to the front line,” he says,“to support staff that have to deal with ethical issues on a regular basis.”

To get broad input from staff, in 2006 the Values and Ethics Branch organized a series of focus groups in each region and at all operational levels of CSC. The branch received more than 4,500 comments and suggestions with six prominent themes emerging — work environment, organizational culture, communications, leadership, consistency/fairness and recognition.

A National Values and Ethics Strategy

These themes now form the basis of a national values and ethics strategy, which aims to address the main recommendations coming out of the focus groups. Prominent among these recommendations are the need for widespread values and ethics training, assistance in dealing with ethical dilemmas and recognition for staff who consistently behave in an ethical manner.

The first step in implementing the strategy is a series of pilot projects that involve oneday workshops at 17 sites, representing all security levels and specialized facilities, community operations and regional headquarters. Training began in October 2007.

“We’re trying to show through these pilots that ethics can make a difference in the overall climate of the workplace,” Stephen Wilson explains.“We want to create an environment in which there is open communication, where there is respect for staff, where doing the right thing is recognized.We’re not expecting immediate results,”he cautions.“The bottom line is that staff see and feel a difference over time.”

To assess the impact of training, staff participating in the pilots will be surveyed before and after. These results will be compared with employee surveys in nonpilot institutions. Baseline data from previous public service surveys will also serve as a point of reference.

Other initiatives under consideration include an ethics hotline where staff can call for guidance if they find themselves in an ethical dilemma and a series of tools and templates for ethical decision-making.

Making abstract concepts like values and ethics real to the average employee isn’t all that difficult, Stephen Wilson maintains. He finds that when staff are asked to discuss ethical issues they have observed in the workplace, they have no shortage of examples.

“For instance, you see a colleague doing something wrong and you don’t know how to deal with it.You know it’s wrong,but you think maybe it’s best just to keep quiet,to keep yourself or your teammate out of trouble.

The Example of Hugh Thompson

“In Cornwall, we often use the example of a guy named Hugh Thompson. He was an American air force pilot in the Vietnam War, and this relates to the My Lai massacre. While he was flying support for the mission, Mr. Thompson observed the advancing American forces on the ground murdering the villagers of My Lai. The victims were largely elderly men, women and children. So he landed his gunship between the villagers and the Americans and ordered his gunners to shoot any Americans who continued with the massacre.

“That’s one thing about ethics,”Stephen Wilson comments.“It’s easy to look from the outside and say ‘I should have done that,’ but you don’t know until you’re actually in the situation. I would like to believe that I would have acted like Mr. Thompson, who was 24 years old at the time, but I’m not sure I could have.”

“Many people,when asked to identify an ethical person, will identify ethical heroes similar to Hugh Thompson, or exceptional people like Mother Teresa. But I also consider equally ethical those people who go about their everyday business in a very effective manner. They don’t seek glory or recognition. They go in, they do their work, they treat others respectfully, they create a very positive atmosphere. Ultimately, it’s the individual who has to make the decision to do the right thing.” ♦