Teach Ethical Behavior the Easy Way
By: Matt Brodhead, Ph.D., BCBA-D
How do you go about making sure that your employees learn to behave ethically without having to rely on irrelevant case studies or trainings? The answer may be hiding in plain sight, and it may be easier than you think.
The easiest way to create content to help teach your employees how to behave ethically is to create an archive of past ethical dilemmas / scenarios that have occurred within your organization. When an ethical issue occurs within your organization, write it down (omit all identifying and personal information, of course) to be used for later trainings. Why is this helpful? Because such an archive will contain examples that are relevant and specific to your practice.
For example, if you provide in-home Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services, the ethical scenarios you are likely to encounter (e.g., increased threats of dual relationships with client family members) will be different than if you provided services in a public school (e.g., matters related to professional collaboration). Though some ethical issues may occur, regardless of the setting you provide services, an archive of previous ethical issues can make sure that your training materials remain relevant for your employees.
After you’ve collected enough incidents, you can integrate them into individual and group supervision and training sessions. These trainings may be especially helpful for new employees who join your organization, because they may either be new to the field of ABA, or new to the context in which you provide services. And if you can educate them on the ethical issues they are likely to encounter, they can be prepared for them, once they face them (which will happen!).
Don’t be stuck trying to clean up a mess of bad employee behavior. Instead, recognize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Teach your employees to be ethical behavior analysts from the very start, and do so using case studies that are relevant and useful for them!
Interested in learning more? Purchase A Workbook in Behavioral Systems Analysis and Ethical Behavior and learn how to improve the ethical behavior of your employees.
The above information is based off of recommendations from the peer-reviewed article, Teaching and Maintaining Ethical Behavior in a Professional Organization by Matthew T. Brodhead and Thomas S. Higbee. The peer-reviewed article was published in 2012 in Behavior Analysis in Practice.