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Our Readers Say…
 With this issue
focusing on “Walking the Talk,” we
decided to survey members of AQP to determine how
their organizations define, communicate, and practice
ethics and values. We learned that 84% of our
members’ companies have a code of ethics or
code of conduct in place and that more than 90% of
those organizations have had those codes in place for
more than two years.
Readers had many comments regarding the presence
of these codes in their organizations, as well as
whether such codes are even necessary. Here are just
a few of their perspectives:
“My current company does not have an
official code of conduct, but it is still, by far,
the most ethical company I’ve ever worked for.
I believe this is due to the fact that we are
relatively small (55 employees) and privately owned.
I’ve been employed by five previous companies;
all publicly traded and all full of
corruption.”
“The Code of Business Conduct is the basis
for all employees in our company. From CEO to
associates, all are required to read, sign, and
follow the code. Security is the police department
for violations, and such occurrences usually end in
termination, which gets people’s
attention.”
“A ‘code of ethics’ is
meaningless and carries no teeth, nor do words affect
company culture. How we act and behave are more
relevant to the ethical makeup of an organization
than some silly code. Enron had a code of ethics.
Andersen had a code. Ernst & Young has a code,
but they’ll help your company cheat us out of
taxes.”
“Personally, I believe that one’s
ethics are fully formed by eighth grade. In high
school, if you cheat on tests, copy or plagiarize
papers, or lie to your parents about substance abuse,
there is a high likelihood you will continue to lack
integrity, honesty, and ethics as an adult. No piece
of paper with nice words on it is going to change
that.”
“Our code of conduct appears to have been
generated as a ‘knee jerk’ reaction to
some questionable past events.”
“The company was required to do this a
number of years ago due to unethical practices going
on in one of the divisions. They now take it very
seriously.”
“My organization is a public school district
serving about 8,000 K-12 students. More than 12 years
ago, through a community-wide process, eight
community values were adopted by the school board,
city councils within our service area, and the county
board. These values are intended to be modeled by
adults and used to guide the development of youth in
the community. The values were recently reviewed as
part of updating the school district’s
strategic plan and reaffirmed by the school
board.
“As a part of implementing the plan, we have
started to measure the extent to which staff observe
students demonstrating the community values.
Measuring student behaviors implies many things
we’ve not yet discussed: Assumptions that all
adults in our system are aware of the values, model
them, and understand their role in encouraging
students to grow in these areas; also, that a
training component for adults may be
needed.”
We also asked readers to voice their opinions
about how well management adhered to their
organizations’ ethics policies. We learned that
68% of the respondents believed that supervisors,
middle managers, senior managers, and executives all
complied on a consistent basis. Only 13% of our
members believed that none of these management levels
adhered consistently. One respondent felt senior
managers and executives were more likely to comply
than supervisors and middle managers; two other
respondents felt that exactly the opposite was true.
Another 30 members chose not to reply to this
question.
The following comments reflect our readers’
views on the question of compliance:
“We have a set of values that guide our
business practices. One value is ‘our work is
our bond.’ This is the basis of integrity for
inter- and intracompany relationships. Further, if
you lie in the course of your job, you won’t be
with us long. If you mislead or cheat customers or
suppliers, you won’t be with us long. If you
misrepresent performance or artificially alter
metrics, you will be fired. It is the actions of
leadership that determine the ethics of an
organization. Integrity is a key hiring criteria for
our company.”
“While the code of conduct/ethics is out
there, managers and leaders are not generally held
accountable unless there is a gross
violation.”
“I work for a federal agency, so for us,
violating the standards of conduct is a matter of
law, not just standards. You might also be interested
in knowing that the standards of conduct for federal
employees are more stringent than for members of
Congress.”
Finally, we asked some fairly general questions
regarding reinforcement and revision of these codes.
The tables below summarize our members’
feedback.
| Category |
Percent of Respondents
|
| Signature required? |
| At time of hire |
22%
|
| At time of hire and annually |
24%
|
| Annually, but not at time of
hire |
7%
|
At some other time
|
16%
|
No
|
30%
|
| Training provided? |
| During new employee
orientation |
22%
|
| During orientation and periodic
reviews/updates |
38%
|
| During periodic reviews/updates,
but not orientation |
22%
|
No
|
18%
|
| Review/revision
schedule |
| Occurs at least annually |
36%
|
| Has occurred at least once, but
not annually |
45%
|
| Has not been revised, but
currently is scheduled for review |
2%
|
| Has never been revised and no
plans for revision are known |
18%
|
| 148 Respondents |
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