Addressing Misconduct: Building Professional Responsibility Functions in Government
Agencies are staying at the forefront of supporting their workforces by enhancing their focus on professional responsibility – the discipline of proactively reducing misconduct and harassment throughout the workforce. Focusing on addressing and even preventing misconduct and harassment – as a standalone office reporting to an agency head or as a critical function within an existing independent office – is important to the workforce and helps agencies carry out their mission more effectively. It helps agencies earn and maintain a reputation of integrity and trust from the public.
Professional responsibility includes the requirements of government employees to act in a professional and ethical manner, obey the law, avoid conflicts of interest, and put the interests of citizens, clients, and employees ahead of their own. A rigorous, discipled organization dedicated to this function helps employees understand their role and obligation to the public and encourages employees to file an allegation of harassment or misconduct without fear of reprisal. This function also provides agencies with a safer work environment without fear of misconduct or harassment and promotes a culture of responsibility based on the agency’s core values.
In recent years, the availability of new technology to support communication with their workforce has helped agency leaders increase their engagement with their employees to prevent issues with professional responsibility. The availability of data and more advanced systems allows leaders to visualize the trends and patterns in their organization and to assess how well their initiatives within this business function are impacting the organization’s culture and the employees willingness to report issues without fear. Also, making it clear to organizations that addressing allegations thoroughly and taking action on confirmed cases can further build trust in an organization’s leadership and workforce, while strengthening the culture.
Developing a strategic plan for improving the professional responsibility function within agencies or integrating it more closely with related functions can help address and reduce misconduct. This leads to a portfolio of initiatives to act on the findings and make changes to address the goals.
Coordination and collaboration between agencies and the offices within them can help develop strong strategies, data management, and strategic communications techniques to promote a culture of professional responsibility from reactive to proactive. This can result in long-term improvements to the culture that allow employees to focus more on mission results.
