Study: 75% of Tomorrow's Workforce Cheat

I found a copy of an article I had written on a web site in the Netherlands, with the web site owner's name replacing mine as author. I called him on it. He explained that he didn't put the article together but had used a student in the Philippines to research and write articles. That's plagiarism.

I found another one today, with my name removed and "Admin" listed as the author. I am tracking it down now. The picture of "Admin" shows a young girl, perhaps late teens or early twenties. That too, is plagiarism.

I read in the newspaper recently, a report from the Canadian Council on Learning that shows three quarters (75%) of first-year university and college students cheated at least once in high-school.

Students, apparently don't see plagiarism the same as their professors. High-school teachers are turning a blind eye to it - or not bothering to check it at all. That, unfortunately, gives students the impression that plagiarism is acceptable. I mean, really, what's the difference between downloading someone else's work and calling it your own and downloading music from peer-to-peer sites and not paying for it. Theft is theft - but the message is that it's acceptable in high-school if teachers won't address the behavior. This is creating a Culture of cheating in high-schools.

According to the newspaper article, "David Johnston, the associate vice provost of enrollment and the registrar at the University of Calgary, said students who are accused of plagiarism in their first year often do so out of ignorance. 'What we find is that students coming out of high school don't have a clear idea of what plagiarism is,' he said. 'The Internet has made it easy for students to do what they think is research. They cut and paste without citing the source.'"

Here's the management challenge of tomorrow: managing workers who feel stealing someone else's work is OK. If that is the rule, is stealing credit for an idea OK? Is stealing clients from co-workers OK? How about stealing someone's lunch from the lunchroom or coins on a desk or tech gadgets?

If 75% of your new workers have plagiarized or cheated in recent years, how are you going to manage a group of workers who believe that plagiarism and cheating are acceptable?

Be firm and clear that there is a zero tolerance on cheating if you don't want this group of new workers to infiltrate and poison the Culture of Accountability in your workplace.