Do Ethics in Government Matter?

A major ethics scandal may soon unfold in the public sector unless government agencies, particularly local and state governments, institute strong ethics programs, according to the Arlington, Va. - based Ethics Resource Center’s (ERC) National Government Ethics Survey released in January. Almost one-quarter of the public sector employees responding to the survey said there is a great deal of pressure to compromise standards in their work environments. About 63 percent of the local government employees in the survey said they had observed t least one type of misconduct in the previous year. While federal employees reported less inclination toward misconduct on their jobs, 86% of state and local employees reported a lack of a strong ethics program in their workplace, while only 7 percent of state employees and 9 percent of local government employees said they see a truly ethical culture on the job. The report is available at www.ethics.org/download.asp?fid=104

Global Economy Survey

The Ohio Department of Education conducted a recent global economy survey of a thousand or more businesses and organizations in Ohio to determine current and future skill, knowledge and behavior characteristics of the labor force to match education with employment. One hundred ten companies or organizations responded, which is an adequate sample.

To ensure that Ohio is competitive in the new global economy, the State Board of Education will use the results from the survey to help develop policy recommendations and define next steps in reforming Ohio’s education system.

Question 1 asked: Looking ahead to 2020, what will be the most important skills, knowledge and behaviors for students to acquire to provide Ohio with competitive advantages in the new global economy?

Question 2 asked: What skills, knowledge and behaviors do you value in current employees and/or are you looking for in new hires today?

While in some ways each question provided similar sets of answers, a few important differences should be noted:

Interestingly, the No. 1 most valued response for current employees and new hires relates to work ethic, dependability, and character (67 responses). However, this characteristic was not nearly as important when thinking of future characteristics (37 responses).

Educators versus Non-Educators

Percent breakdown of those giving the following responses to Question #1:

Percent breakdown of those giving the following responses to Question #2:

Types of business/industry: 47% reported working in education, 26% in health care, 15% in non-profit, and 8% in government. Numerous other business or industry categories were represented by at least one respondent.

Organization size: Organizations of vastly different sizes are represented as 44% responded as having between 101-1000 employees, 32% have more than 1000, and 23% have less than 100.

International presence: While all of these organizations are headquartered within the U.S., about a third (32%) conduct business in languages other than English, 18% import/export goods and services with other countries, and 11% have offices outside the U.S. Six respondents work for organizations that have offices in more than 20 countries.

Role: A quarter of respondents (25%) are CEOs, 13% are HR pro-fessionals, and 7% Board Members. About half of the respondents (52%) represented some other role in their organization such as consultants, administrator, teacher, manager, etc.

Source: Marianne Mottley
Ohio Dept. of Education, 3/08

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