Report on Ethical Issues Stemming from Rio Tinto’s Toxic Work Environment

Introduction:

Rio Tinto is an Australian owned mining company, which operates globally on a large scale. The company operates in around 35 countries and has around 57,000 employees. However, the employees of the company have launched complaints against the toxic workplace culture, and have highlighted some negative workplace trait at Rio Tinto including racial discrimination, sexual harassment and bullying. The organisation released an everyday respect progress review report, where a review of the workplace culture at Rio Tinto was conducted by Elizabeth Broderick & Co. Upon analysis, the company found significant concerns and complaints of the employees, who are still facing the toxic workplace culture at Rio Tinto (Rio Tinto, 2024). This issue is an ethical dilemma as any action against it, will either harm the management and disrupt organisational processes, and benefit the affected workers or vice versa. This report aims to critically analyse the case of Rio Tinto from ethical perspectives, and provide recommendations to the organisation to solve the issue.

Ethical analysis of Rio Tinto:

According to the report, around 4% of men, 16% of women and 22% of non-binary people have experienced sexual harassment at Rio Tinto, the same as in 2021. Similarly, 36% of men, 50% of women and 48% of non-binary workers have faced bullying at Rio Tinto, while 7% of men, 8% of women and 11% of non-binary people had experienced racism (Rio Tinto, 2024). According to Sull and Sull (2022), a toxic workplace culture poses a lasting effect and a serious harm to the workers of the company, and exposes them to early health issues such as stress, depression and burnout. This toxicity at Rio Tito not only impacts its workers but also impacts the whole organisation on a global level. McLean and Murphy (2024) also reported about Rio Tinto’s bad reputation among people because of the continuous harassment and bullying incidents, which is negatively impacting the company’s name. This issue is an ethical dilemma as ethical violations at the workplace have been reported, where if the company takes decision to protect the reputation to avoid disruption of the workplace can harm the employees affected and may benefit the top-level management. However, if the organisation takes actions against workers involved in this, might harm the reputation of the organisation, and will impacts the top-level management, which will disrupt the business processes, while benefitting the affected workers. Therefore, the stakeholders who are affected by this issue at Rio Tinto includes men, women and non-binary workers of the organisation, the higher management and the CEO of the organisation. This is because such ethical issues have not only become a workplace challenge for the workers, but have also been damaging the reputation of the organisation.

The deontological theory of ethics asks people to always take right actions, no matter what the outcomes of those actions are, because every person or organisation has certain moral responsibilities and duties of care towards other (Körner and Deutsch, 2023).  Being an employer, it was Rio Tinto’s responsibility to take care of its employees, and to provide them a workplace, which is free from racial discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment. These were the ethical moral duties of Rio Tinto towards its people. Therefore, from a deontological perspective, Rio Tinto has failed to adhere to its moral duties towards its employees.

According to Crudu (2023), the deontology theory of ethics acts as a framework of reference used to clarify the rights and duties of the professions, that have been driven by the law and by the social and moral aspects. Therefore, employers such as Rio Tinto can use the deontology theory as a guide to its ethical decision making process, by reconsidering its moral duties and performing the actions that are a moral responsibility of the organisation and have been declared by the law.

However, as reported by Tseng and Wang (2021) the theory of utilitarianism highlights the importance of having an ethically and legally positive outcome in any situation. From this perspective, the principle of utility is considered to evaluate whether an action or a decision is right or wrong, such as if an action would lead to a maximized positive outcome, then it must be considered right, however, if a decision or an action leads to harmful outcomes then it must be considered ethically wrong. Considering this theory, Rio Tinto failed to fetch positive outcomes at the workplace, as Rio Tinto should have taken actions that would have led to positive outcomes, and as a result, the people of the organisation would have never had toxic experiences at the workplace.

According to the report by Rio Tinto (2023), the organisational moral and ethical philosophy focuses on transparency of operations and practicing integrity in actions. The code of conduct at Rio Tinto values accountability, honesty and the translation of commitment in actions and practices. The organisational philosophy aims to provide physical and emotional safety to the people, and encourages its people to speak up against unethical actions, without getting afraid of their employment contract. Rio Tinto uses  an ethical decision model as shown in Appendix A, which focuses on reflection, respecting the views of others, considering a range of options, understanding facts and situation and being able to stand by the decisions. The organisation also has a platform called “myVoice” where people are allowed to speak up, report and register complains against ethical violations.

The code of conduct report reflects that Rio Tinto’s philosophy guides to respect and practice ethics and take strict actions against unethical actions. However, the recent news and the organisational reports differ from this philosophy, as a certain number of workers still have complained about the unethical toxic actions at the workplace (Rio Tinto, 2024; McLean & Murphy, 2024).

Business ethics is important for organisations to commit, practice and adhere to ethics. According to Pembi and Ali (2024) business ethics is a set of rules which helps organisations differentiate between right or wrong and guides them to act in a moral, legal and ethical manner. In fact, ethics must be considered as the first thing in a business, as it helps organisations bloom and survive in the market. The process when organisations choose between right or wrong, aligning it with the ethical standards, is called ethical decision-making.

This ethical decision-making is important in the case of Rio Tinto to help the management take right actions, by evaluating the outcomes and legal/moral/ethical values of the actions, to resolve the unethical toxic workplaces experiences being faced by the workers. The inability of Rio Tinto to take ethical actions against the reported issues, can expose the organisation towards financial constraints, and physical constraint such as the loss of employees and their poor performance. Moreover, it can also negatively impact the reputation and image of the organisation globally, which is why it is extremely important for Rio Tinto to address these ethical concerns.

Therefore, to overcome the identified ethical challenge and toxic workplace culture at Rio Tinto, the first recommendation for Rio Tinto is to promote and integrate ethical leadership accountability among its managers and employees. According to Azhar et al. (2025) promoting ethical leadership among the management of an organisation allows the managers to take accountability for the ethical compliance of actions across the organisation. Moreover, it also allows employees to be accountable for their actions and will guide them to play their role in corporate social responsibility. This recommendation can help in the elimination of discrimination, bullying and sexual harassment at Rio Tinto workplaces, the employees will be given the ethical leadership roles, which will make them, comply to ethical standards.

The second recommendation is to impose strict punishments on unethical acts such as by charging heavy financial penalties or termination of employment contract upon ethical misconduct. According to Jha and Singh (2023) the absence of effective punishment for unethical conduct in an organisation reflects a toxic and unethical work culture. However, if organisations take strict actions or gives strict punishments to the worker violating ethical principles makes people believe that the organisation take quick actions against such misconducts and has an ethical work culture.

The third recommendation is to apply the recognition behavior theory to alter the behaviour of employees and shape it towards ethics and morality. According to Rachmad (2022) and Sawyer et al. (2022), the recognition behavior theory is a style of leadership where the people are appreciated on their efforts which in return, motivates them to repeat the same positive behaviour in the future. This acts as a strategic tool to foster positive outcomes and alter the behaviour of the individuals. Rio Tinto can use this theory to alter the behaviour of its employees, by appreciating the managers and the employees working under them, on applying the ethical leadership effectively. This will positively impact the motivational level of the employees and the managers, and will direct them to adhere to ethical leadership and accountability in the future as well.

Conclusion:

This report concludes that the workplace culture at Rio Tinto is toxic because of the ethical negligence at Rio Tinto. The organisation has failed to comply to ethical standards, as the employees are still facing the issues of ethical misconduct. Therefore, Rio Tinto is recommended to promote a culture of ethical leadership and make employees and managers accountable for ethical compliance, and short impose strict punishments on the violation of ethical practices. Moreover, the report also recommends Rio Tinto to apply the recognition behaviour theory to foster positive behavioral outcomes in employees and to eliminate the disrespectful and unethical practices at the workplace.

References:

Azhar, Z., Iqbal, T., & Imran, M. (2025). The Role of Ethical Leadership in HRM-driven Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Journal of Management & Social Science, 2(1), 158-176. https://doi.org/10.63075/ze47qb74

Crudu, C. (2023). Professional ethics and deontology in the practice of social work. Analele Ştiinţifice ale Universităţii» Alexandru Ioan Cuza «din Iaşi. Sociologie şi Asistenţă Socială, 16(2), 17-23. DOI: 10.47743/asas-2023-2-739

Jha, J. K., & Singh, M. (2023). Who cares about ethical practices at workplace? A taxonomy of employees’ unethical conduct from top management perspective. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 31(2), 317-339. DOI: 10.1108/IJOA-07-2020-2321

Körner, A., & Deutsch, R. (2023). Deontology and utilitarianism in real life: A set of moral dilemmas based on historic events. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 49(10), 1511-1528. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672221103058
Sull, D., & Sull, C. (2022). How to fix a toxic culture. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/how-to-fix-a-toxic-culture/

McLean, C., & Murphy, R. (2024, November 20). Rio Tinto apologises to victims bullied at work but says improvements being made in workplace culture. ABC News. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-20/rio-tinto-bullying-and-sexual-harrassment-report/104623880

Pembi, S., & Ali, B. K. (2024). ethical business decision-making in organizations: A theoretical perspectives. Advanced Qualitative Research, 2(1), 19-30. https://doi.org/10.31098/aqr.v2i1.2133

Rachmad, Y. E. (2022). Recognition Behavior Theory. La Rochelle Port Éditions Internationales. https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/jmt35

Rio Tinto. (2023). The way we work: Our code of conduct. https://www.riotinto.com/en/sustainability/ethics-compliance#:~:text=Our%20business%20integrity%20standard%20and,people%20navigate%20any%20grey%20areas.

Rio Tinto. (2024). Everyday Respect at Rio Tinto Progress Review. https://www.riotinto.com/en/sustainability/talent-diversity-inclusion/everyday-respect

Sawyer, K. B., Thoroughgood, C. N., Stillwell, E. E., Duffy, M. K., Scott, K. L., & Adair, E. A. (2022). Being present and thankful: A multi-study investigation of mindfulness, gratitude, and employee helping behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 107(2), 240-262. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000903

Tseng, P. E., & Wang, Y. H. (2021). Deontological or utilitarian? An eternal ethical dilemma in outbreak. International journal of environmental research and public health, 18(16), 8565. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18168565