Ethics and professionalism at a premium in the Middle East workplace - reveals Bayt.com online poll

The online poll found that just 52% of the job seeking respondents believed that their company always conducts business in an ethical manner, with 45% stating to the contrary.

Furthermore, the poll revealed that just 51% of respondents agreed that their companies always conduct business in a professional manner, with almost 49% agreeing that their company was not professional at all.

The ethics and professionalism online poll conducted by Bayt.com sought to gauge the levels of satisfaction of both employees and employers towards their workplace, in terms of these attributes.

Respondent's feelings towards the professionalism and ethics of their bosses provided a telling indictment into a high level of poor performance at a managerial level, with the majority of respondents at 32% regarding their boss as neither professional nor ethical.

Just 27% said their boss was both.

What's more, the respondents were largely negative in terms of how they felt about their fellow employees, with 32% believing that their colleagues were neither professional nor ethical compared to the 20% who felt they were.

Rabea Ataya, Chief Executive Officer, Bayt.com said:

"Organizations can find out how employees are truly feeling about their workplaces, and how employers feel about their staff with regards to their level of ethics and professionalism, which has often been found to be a fundamental driver for employee loyalty and satisfaction. In the Middle East's dynamic and competitive market place, it is assumed that by design, organizations do not compromise on ethics or the level of professionalism, but the figures tell a different story, and it is this information that HR professionals and industry stakeholders can use to develop and improve their organizations in the future."

Overall, employers revealed similar sentiments to the job seekers, with a 55% - 45% split on whether their companies were professional or not.

However, on an industry level, 59% of those polled believed that within their industry in general there was a high level of ethics and professionalism - reflecting perhaps that while individual organizations couldn't be granted such high respect for their ethical practices, it doesn't mean it is an industry-wide shortcoming.

Interestingly, when asked what employers value most in their employees, ethics and integrity was the overwhelming attribute at 43%.

While experience and technical expertise featured highly, only 7.5% of employers believed that education was the most important quality.

Employers were mostly split in terms of whether they screen potential employees for their level of ethics and professionalism during the recruitment process, with just 49% confirming that they did.

"This interesting data can be of huge benefit to all employers, HR practitioners and recruitment websites, as it provides quick and valuable insights into how jobseekers in the region are feeling with regard to the level of professionalism at work and the level of ethical practices that are instituted, and offers pointers as to what new selection procedures employers could follow, to guarantee that their workplaces are both ethically and professionally run in the future," concluded Ataya.

Data for the Ethics and Professionalism poll was collected online between the period of 10th August and 15th September 2008, with a total of 8,593 respondents from across the Middle East.