Workplace Ethics and Productivity Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Line Managers, Department Heads and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 7 Nov 2026 Course code SD-LD-139

Before you join: Participants should have experience supervising people, coordinating work, managing performance or contributing to workplace policies and controls.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Workplace ethics directly affects productivity through trust, decision quality, reporting behaviour, workload allocation and the willingness to raise concerns early. When employees see inconsistent standards, favouritism, unrealistic targets or ignored misconduct, they may withhold information, disengage, repeat avoidable work or leave. Managers need practical ways to connect conduct expectations with everyday performance management rather than treating ethics as a policy document or annual compliance requirement.

This course examines how leaders create fair, accountable and productive working conditions. Participants apply ethical decision-making tests, assess ethical climate, set conduct-based performance expectations, handle conflicts of interest, encourage speak-up behaviour and respond proportionately to misconduct. They learn to identify productivity losses caused by poor incentives, metric gaming, weak communication, uneven workload distribution and unresolved concerns. The programme also addresses ethical leadership, psychological safety, procedural justice, supplier conduct and public-interest responsibilities.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases, facilitated group analysis, decision simulations and structured planning. Cases reflect issues commonly faced in banks, government bodies, NGOs, multinational firms and service organisations, including target pressure, complaints handling, procurement conflicts, whistleblowing and team fairness. Participants leave with an ethical productivity diagnosis, a decision record template, a speak-up protocol, a fair-performance scorecard and a 90-day action plan for their own team or function.

The course is suited to managers who influence performance, people decisions, controls or service delivery. It is particularly valuable for leaders seeking to improve results without creating pressure that encourages poor judgement, concealment or harmful shortcuts.

What you will be able to do

  • Assess ethical climate and identify productivity losses linked to trust, silence and misconduct
  • Apply the PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model to difficult workplace decisions
  • Document conflicts of interest, escalation routes and accountable approval decisions
  • Set performance measures that balance results, quality, conduct and employee wellbeing
  • Use procedural justice principles when allocating work, rewards and development opportunities
  • Conduct speak-up conversations using SBI feedback and psychological safety techniques
  • Analyse misconduct using Five Whys, fishbone analysis and just culture principles
  • Produce a 90-day ethical productivity action plan with measures and ownership

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make defensible decisions when commercial pressure conflicts with conduct expectations
  • Handle difficult team conversations without avoiding concerns or escalating conflict
  • Recognise metric gaming and target pressure before they damage service quality
  • Build a reputation for fair, consistent and accountable leadership
  • Use a practical 90-day plan to improve team trust and performance

For your organisation

  • Reduced rework, concealment and avoidable errors caused by weak speak-up culture
  • More consistent management decisions on rewards, workload and conduct concerns
  • Earlier identification of conflicts of interest, retaliation risks and control gaps
  • Performance measures that discourage harmful shortcuts and misleading reporting
  • Clearer accountability for corrective actions following misconduct or process failures

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can explain how workplace ethics affects trust, performance and operational productivity.

  • Ethics, values and conduct distinguished from personal preference and compliance
  • Productivity losses traced through rework, silence, absenteeism and turnover
  • Trust equation assessed using credibility, reliability, intimacy and self-orientation
  • Psychological safety linked to error reporting, learning and discretionary effort
  • Stakeholder mapping identifies affected parties, duties, incentives and power
  • Ethical climate types compared: caring, rules, instrumental, independence and law

Participants can make and document defensible ethical decisions under competing pressures.

  • Utilitarian, rights, justice, virtue and care tests compared
  • PLUS model applies policies, legal, universal and self tests
  • Separate facts, assumptions, interests and values before judging conduct
  • Conflict-of-interest decisions documented through disclosure, recusal and approval
  • Proportionality tests balance intended benefits, foreseeable harms and alternatives
  • Decision records state rationale, dissent, owner and review date

Participants can translate conduct requirements into clear responsibilities, controls and management actions.

  • Codes of conduct translated into observable manager behaviours and boundaries
  • ISO 37001 controls connected to gifts, conflicts and third parties
  • RACI clarifies ethics responsibilities for escalation, investigation and remediation
  • Policy exceptions assessed against precedent, risk appetite and approval authority
  • Control gaps distinguished from misconduct, error and capability shortfalls
  • Manager accountability established through commitments, measures and consequence management

Participants can lead consistently and apply fairness principles to everyday people decisions.

  • Ethical leadership behaviours: role modelling, fairness, candour and consistency
  • Leader-Member Exchange risks identified in favouritism, access and workload allocation
  • Procedural justice applied to decisions, voice, explanations and appeals
  • Distributive justice tested when assigning rewards, recognition and scarce resources
  • Situational leadership choices reconciled with non-negotiable conduct standards
  • Daily management routines reinforce promises, follow-through and respectful challenge

Participants can create conditions for reporting concerns and address issues constructively.

  • Edmondson’s psychological safety conditions applied to team conversations
  • Speak-up channels assessed for confidentiality, accessibility, independence and retaliation risk
  • SBI feedback frames specific conduct, impact and required change
  • Crucial Conversations skills separate observations, stories, feelings and requests
  • Retaliation indicators escalated through documented safeguards and independent review
  • Listening protocols surface minority views before decisions are finalised

Participants can design performance expectations that support results without encouraging misconduct.

  • Balanced Scorecard measures align financial, customer, process and people outcomes
  • Goodhart’s Law diagnoses metric gaming and unintended performance distortion
  • SMART measures include quality, timeliness, safety and ethical conduct
  • Targets stress-tested for capacity, incentives, trade-offs and control weaknesses
  • Performance reviews address results, methods, behaviours and corrective actions
  • Recognition criteria reward collaboration, candour, learning and responsible delivery

Participants can identify ethical and operational risks arising from workload and process design.

  • Workload allocation tested for transparency, capability, wellbeing and operational risk
  • Queueing and bottleneck analysis identifies delays, handoffs and rework drivers
  • Standard work documents ethical checkpoints within recurring high-risk processes
  • Job demands-resources model diagnoses fatigue, overload and disengagement
  • Fair rota principles address shifts, leave, flexibility and caring responsibilities
  • Process maps expose approval delays, duplicate controls and hidden work

Participants can respond to concerns proportionately and identify underlying causes for improvement.

  • Misconduct triage separates immediate safety, legal, people and control risks
  • Investigation intake records allegation, evidence, confidentiality, owner and timescale
  • Root cause analysis uses Five Whys and fishbone categories
  • Just culture distinguishes human error, at-risk behaviour and reckless conduct
  • Corrective actions assign controls, communications, coaching and verification dates
  • Lessons-learned reviews protect confidentiality while improving process design

Participants can apply ethical productivity principles to customers, suppliers and public stakeholders.

  • Stakeholder salience analysis prioritises legitimate claims, urgency and influence
  • Supplier conduct expectations cover labour, bribery, safety and data handling
  • Customer fairness tested in pricing, eligibility, complaints and service recovery
  • Public-interest considerations applied to regulated services and community impacts
  • Ethical procurement checkpoints assess conflicts, gifts, bids and contract changes
  • Cross-cultural norms examined without excusing discrimination, corruption or harassment

Participants can produce a measurable action plan for improving ethics and productivity in their team.

  • Ethical productivity diagnosis synthesises climate, workflow, incentives and conduct evidence
  • Heat maps rank risks by impact, likelihood, ownership and urgency
  • 90-day action plan specifies behaviours, controls, milestones and measures
  • PDCA cycles test interventions, review evidence and standardise improvements
  • Communication plans explain expectations, reporting routes and non-retaliation commitments
  • Personal leadership commitments include triggers, accountability partners and review dates

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Ethical productivity diagnostic template
  2. PLUS decision record template
  3. Speak-up and non-retaliation protocol
  4. Fair performance scorecard
  5. Misconduct root-cause analysis worksheet
  6. 90-day ethical productivity action plan

Who should attend

  • Line Managers — responsible for daily performance, workload and conduct decisions
  • Department Heads — accountable for team culture, targets and operational results
  • HR Managers — shape fair people practices, investigations and employee relations
  • Compliance Managers — translate conduct obligations into manager routines
  • Operations Managers — reduce rework, delays and control failures without harmful pressure
  • Project Managers — manage priorities, resources and stakeholder expectations fairly

Skills and tools covered

Ethical decision-makingEthical leadershipSpeak-up managementFair performance managementMisconduct analysisProductivity improvement

Tools and standards

PLUS Ethical Decision-Making Model, RACI matrix, Balanced Scorecard, ISO 37001

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce frameworks, followed by case work based on target pressure, favouritism, procurement conflicts, complaints and reporting concerns. Participants analyse decisions in groups, practise speak-up and feedback conversations, and use simulations to test responses to ethical dilemmas. Facilitated discussion compares alternative actions against evidence, stakeholder impacts and conduct standards. Each participant develops an ethical productivity diagnosis and a practical action plan linked to their management responsibilities.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience supervising people, coordinating work, managing performance or contributing to workplace policies and controls. They should be familiar with their employer’s basic code of conduct, reporting channels and performance expectations. No formal qualification in ethics, law, HR, compliance or psychology is required. The course does not assume prior knowledge of ISO standards, investigative methods or management theory. Participants will benefit most if they can bring a current workplace challenge involving targets, team behaviour, workload, fairness or decision-making.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have experience managing people, coordinating work or contributing to performance and conduct decisions. No prior qualification in ethics, HR, compliance or law is required.

Bring a current workplace issue involving team performance, workload, target pressure, fairness or conduct. A copy of your organisation’s code of conduct or relevant policy may be useful, but it is not required.

It is designed for line managers, department heads, HR professionals, compliance staff, operations managers and project leaders. It is most useful for people who influence daily decisions, targets and team behaviour.

Compliance courses focus mainly on rules, obligations and reporting requirements. This course concentrates on managerial behaviours, team culture, decision quality and the productivity effects of ethical or poor conduct.

Participants can use the decision record, speak-up protocol, fair-performance scorecard and diagnostic template in current team situations. The final module produces a 90-day action plan with owners, measures and review points.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with about 6.5 contact hours daily. Across five days, participants complete ten connected modules covering ethics, leadership behaviour, performance management, speak-up, misconduct and improvement planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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