Staffing giant ManpowerGroup and payroll and benefits provider Paychex made this year’s list of World’s Most Ethical Companies from Ethisphere. In the 16 years this list has been released, ManpowerGroup has made it 13 times and Paychex has made it 14 times.
The honorees are determined using Ethisphere’s proprietary rating system, the corporate Ethics Quotient (EQ). The EQ assesses five categories:
- Ethics and compliance program (35%)
- Culture of ethics (20%)
- Environmental and societal impact (20%
- Governance (15%)
- Leadership and reputation (10%)
A company’s score is determined relative to its peers (i.e., organizations with similar structure, size, and operating environment). While any organization can participate, the system is designed for those with revenue of $250 million or more.
Ethisphere notes that the benefits of being ethical are directly related to a company’s bottom line, as those on the list have outperformed a comparable index of large cap companies. The five-year “ethics premium” was 24.6% between January 2017 and January 2022.
