adminwith it being the practicable means through which ethics can be engraved in business operations. The corporate ethics programme is a corporate governance best practice tenet. There are five specific roles company leaders must perform during the design and development of a corporate ethics programme.
Commitment towards programme
Company leadership including management must commit themselves towards the development of the corporate ethics programme and ensure that it becomes a success. Leaders sit at the apex of their organisations, and together with management, their business conduct, good or bad, has a strong influence on everyone else in the organisation.
As stewards they steer the ship, and any corporate misdemeanour they perpetrate has a serious ripple effect on the behaviour of employees right across the organisation.
They must exemplify ethical behaviour through their words and deeds because all others involved with the firm look up to them for guidance. They must serve as role models, and should know that they have the paramount responsibility to link ethics to company strategy.
Visible commitment by company leadership helps an organisation to progress from just having a policy document on ethics to creating a corporate environment where ethics is practised and a central factor in all its business decisions. Leaders should show the goodness of ethics and the bottom line tying up.
Codify company values
It is the responsibility of company leaders to ensure that a Code of Ethics has been developed. A code of ethics is basically a set of company values and beliefs that is intended to guide staff in making ethical decisions. It is the primary means through which organisations give guidance for its employees on what is expected of them.
It codifies the standards of ethical behaviour expected, and the values to which all members of the organisation must commit themselves to uphold when conducting company business. The ethics code addresses a variety of issues in the organisation that include the work environment, gender relations, employee-management relationships, conflict of interest, insider trading, financial practices, etc.
Formalise ethics programme
The corporate ethics programme can only become meaningful to the organisation when it is formalised by making sure ethics structures such as an ethics office, ethics advisory committee, business ethics training, ethics reward/punishing systems, and ethics reporting mechanisms are put in place. Management should avail these structures and make sure the formal structures are working efficiently in order to build an ethical culture that legitimises ethical discourse in the organisation.
Developing a comprehensive ethics programme does not require putting in place a whole new layer of bureaucracy, or having to fill up new vacancies.
It should be a cross-functional facility tapping into existing resources and structures, and involving all organisational units. Ethical responsibility should be located in every member of the firm and not merely in a dedicated organisational function like Human Resources.
Communicate the importance of ethics
The manner in which leaders communicate the value they place in ethics will define the success of the ethics programme.
Employees need clear, consistent and forceful messages from company leaders that ethics are essential to the success of the organisation. Simply telling staff to do the right thing is not enough.
There should be programme announcement through an official launch by the CEO of the company, ethics training for staff must be organised periodically, and company newsletters, new employee orientations, speeches, meetings, and branding the programme, are all other communication methods organisations can use to convey the message.
Branding or giving the programme a name and following up by engraving the name on corporate items such as plates, tea cups, ties, pens notebooks, T-shirts, etc, will undoubtedly communicate leadership attachment to the success of the ethics endeavour, and will leave an indelible mark about their good intentions in the minds of employees.
Evaluate ethics programme
Management should be able to measure the effectiveness of the company’s ethical efforts. When an organisation implements its corporate ethics programme, it becomes imperative to have the process and its expected outcomes evaluated periodically to ensure the programme’s success.
Management should avoid the pitfalls of unpracticed ethics codes that are a common feature in those organisations that have made an attempt to managing their ethics environment. Such organisations have never bothered to follow up on their codes to see if the codes are serving their purpose. Ethics codes have in such cases been allowed to gather dust in offices without influencing employee behaviour as envisaged, a scenario that is obviously a result of the absence of a clearly defined evaluation process to check code effectiveness.
An effective ethics evaluation process may take the format of the renowned International Organisation for Standardisation standards. The ISO standards examine whether processes that lead to quality goods and services have been followed and this is exactly what an ethics programme evaluation should do.
The whole evaluation process should be inspired by the need to ensure the success of the corporate ethics programme. In any case, management best practices decree that it is irresponsible and unprofessional for companies to dedicate significant management attention and company resources to a programme which the company then fails to evaluate to determine its usefulness and success.
Bradwell Mhonderwa is an Ethics Coach and Trainer with the Business Ethics Centre. Send feedback to [email protected], or visit www.businessethicscentre.co.zw, or call 0772 913 875
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