A poll run by Bayt.com, the Middle East’s number one jobsite, revealed that 43 per cent of employers rate ethics and integrity as the most important attributes in their employees.

While experience and technical expertise featured highly, only 7.5 per cent 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 per cent confirming that they did.

The poll showed that ethics and professionalism levels in the Middle East workplace can be somewhat questionable.

While just 52 per cent of the job seeking respondents believed that their company always conducts business in an ethical manner, 45 per cent stated to the contrary.

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

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 per cent regarding their boss as neither professional nor ethical. Just 27 per cent 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 per cent believing that their colleagues were neither professional nor ethical compared to the 20 per cent who felt they were.

“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,' explained Rabea Ataya, CEO Bayt.com.

'In the Middle East’s dynamic and competitive market place, it is assumed that by design, organisations 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 per cent split on whether their companies were professional or not.

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

“This interesting data can be of huge benefit to all employers, HR practitioners and recruitment websites,” concluded Ataya.-TradeArabia News Service