Why do ethics matter?

| Shefali Roy | TEDxOxbridge

Introduction of Speaker
Having spent the majority of her career in ethics and compliance, Roy elaborates on the
importance of ethics, according to her an inherent and necessary component of business, yet
one that is often overlooked. Citing numerous case studies, she emphasizes that the means of
obtaining financial gain ethically, should never be underestimated or overlooked.
Shefali Roy is the former Chief Compliance Officer (Europe) and Money Laundering Reporting
Officer for Stripe, a techno- ogy company based in San Francisco that facilitates payments
online. Prior to Stripe, Shefali headed up Compliance, Business Conduct, and Risk across
Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa for Apple, was the Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer
for Christie’s worldwide, and was responsible for private wealth compliance for Goldman Sachs
across Europe. She has undergraduate qualification in law, economics and finance and
postgraduate qualification in journalism and economic history, from RMIT, Oxford and the LSE
respectively. She is currently undertaking an EMBA from Oxford’s Said Business School. In 2016,
Shefali was named on Innovate Finance’s Global Most Powerful Women in FinTech List. She sits
on the Boards of Ada’s list - a women in technology network - and Photoworks - a photography
collective.
Summary of TED Talk
It presented questions of personal values and ethics of an employee and how they are
integrated into an organization. Ethics requires deliberation on what one's values or code of
conduct entails, understanding the organization's stand on values, and how they can reconcile
their values with the systems of the organization.
During employment, an individual is confronted with organizational situations that contradict
an individual's values or ethics, requiring them to make decisions on whether to comply with
what the company needs or follow their moral code. Personal ethics matters since they affect a
person's daily life and how they interact with their colleagues.
The video further probed the willingness to work in organizations that compromised an
individual's moral codes or ethics. With claims that ethics are the principles that govern a
person's behavior, evidently, an individual's conduct and decisions are determined by their
ethics. Hence, choosing to work in an organization that compromises their ethics means
behaving or conducting their duties in ways they view as unethical.
Moreover, it raises the need for differentiating the difference between legality and morality and
a further realization that ethics determines an individual's understanding of the terms. Hence,
an employee's decision willingness to work in an organization solely depends on their stand on
their ethical or moral codes. Organizations require new employees to take ethics training tests
as an attempt to ensure they understand the company's values.
The ethics and compliance department is needed to ensure each new employee understands
what the company's ethics or codes of conduct entails and their worker's willingness to comply.
Therefore, the codes and values are a guideline of how the employee should relate with
colleagues and how they conduct business.
In this economy there are some companies or organizations are taking advantages the position
of their employees because according to the talk of Ms. Shefali Roy many companies have been
doing harassment, corruption, bribery and many more that will be lead to unethical.
Roy emphasizes that in an organization you also need to think about the welfare of the former
as well as current employees. She added to her talk that if the students are going to work in a
business world would they do something about the issue or simply continue with the poor
choices being made, a mistake that many others continue to let happen. Policies and
procedures should be in place because ethics is such an important part of a business that can
affect the lives of the employees and others who are connected with an organization.
In addition, it is important to when building your own business you need to think about your
role to create a culture where ethics and morality should be top priority, create a culture for
your employees that you yourself wanted if you would have been employed for someone.