<How to fail an ethics exam? You cheat on it.>
The code of ethics is a kind of nightmare for compliance teams in some companies. It needs to be reviewed and interpreted and compliance is usually the owner of all tasks. Many are seeing the code of ethics as something that you need to have, but not as a tool to be used in the activity. Others have a public code of ethics, a kind of summary of the applicable one and the real one cannot be shared with third parties.
For ones that are familiar with it, the code of ethics is a map, offering guidance on what route to take when there is a choice to make.
The Institute of Business Ethics prepared a report and concluded that ‘189 FTSE 350 companies (54%) have a publicly available code of some sort’ and only ‘58% of the 189 FTSE 350 publicly available codes have an explicit commitment to non-retaliation’. The rest of 161 companies listed on London Stock Exchange and part of FTSE 350 companies have a secret code.
For companies listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange and Warsaw Stock situation is somehow similar. As part of the local culture, for both markets (Romanian and Polish) there are situations when the ones that filed complains based of the code of ethics in listed companies were fired later (apparently there were no links between complaints and the reasoning for being fired).
The code of ethics is a translation for "the way the company or the organisation works around”, setting out the main principles and the guideline for implementing them in line with its core ethical values and the culture.
How to use the code of ethics? Giving responses to important subjects related to the core values of the company / organisation. There are two types of values:
- business values (innovation, value-for-money, customer-focus) representing what the company / organisation delivers, and
- ethical values (honesty, fairness, integrity, trustworthiness, respect) representing how the business values will be achieved.
Specialists identified examples of questions that may be used when there are ethical dilemmas:
- Is it legal?
- Is it in line with the company’s values?
- Am I comfortable to explain my decision to my friends and my family?
- Has this decision an impact on others (colleagues, business partners, shareholders, other impacted parties)?
- Is it a market practice?
The response to ethical questions is only ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If there is a ‘no’, there is an issue. Simple decision?