Task 2

Situation B (Objective 310.2.3-08)

Develop an ethics program for a company

Task A – Develop an applicable standards and procedures section that includes four elements of acceptable or unacceptable behavior found in a code of ethics.

Professional Behavior.
All employees are expected to act in a professional and courteous manner when in the company of customers, clients, co-workers, supervisors, and in the general public when performing company business and duties. It is through this professionalism that the best in an individual can show through. Professionalism builds character, respect, dignity, and self-worth. Teamwork and cooperation between colleagues will build the best holistic outcome in what we do.

Tobacco Use
Tobacco use by employees will not be tolerated on the grounds of Company X, except in the confines of their own personal vehicle. This policy is to include smokeless tobacco. Tobacco use in a personal vehicle will be conducted on the employees scheduled break time. Littering of tobacco by-products will also not be tolerated, and if caught, employee will be cited for littering by local law enforcement. Usage of tobacco products will also be prohibited in the confines of Company X’s vehicles.

Gifts
Employees of Company X are prohibited from accepting any gift from a business partner, competitor, or public government official (foreign or domestic), in the excess of twenty-five dollars. Some entertainment is allowed, however, like an occasional restaurant visit or sporting event. Company X realizes that sometimes good relationships and trust can be built while sharing a meal or watching a game or match, as long as it isn’t frequent and excessive, and as long as it is at the discretion of the employee’s supervisor. When an employee may be in doubt of what may or may not be acceptable, consult with the ethics office to clear any confusion.

Threats and/or Violence
Safety, security, and physical well-being of Company X’s employees are the first priority of the company. Acts of threats and/or violence against fellow employees, its clients, customers and vendors or general public will not be tolerated. This can include actual physical threats, verbal threats, written threats, or anything by electronic means, like e-mail, telephone, or other electronic messaging. The actual act of violence will subject the employee to immediate dismissal and reported to local law enforcement.

Task B – Develop a section that identifies at least three specific elements for an ethics training program.

Frequency of Training
Initially, every new employee will receive a complete eight hour day of training included in their orientation requirements when hired as a new employee. An extra day of orientation will accomplish this requirement. For current employees, all members will also be required to attend an eight hour training day dedicated to the accomplishment of the training requirements. There will be numerous training days throughout the first six months to fulfill all members’ requirements. After the initial eight hour training day, all employees will be required to attend a four hour refresher training class on an annual basis. The employee will know at least one month in advance of the refresher training to give time to the member to make special arrangements if needed.

Persons who will conduct training
The training will be conducted by the ethics office. This is to include both the initial eight hour class and the four hour refresher class employees will need on yearly basis. The instructors will be trained and certified by the ethics department manager, or from an external extension of the ethics department manager.

How the training be presented to the employees
The training for both the initial and refresher training will be a mixture of speaker presentation/lecture, a computer based training section, and a hands on, role playing section of class in which the employees will interact with other members in their training group. Throughout the class, the instructor will be available to the students to ask any questions, clarify any confusion, and guide the teachings.

Task C – Develop a section that explains the process for each of the following: 1) Monitoring employee misconduct. 2) Auditing employee misconduct. 3) Reporting employee misconduct.
Monitoring Employee Misconduct
The ethics office will be responsible for monitoring employee misconduct and use a combination of different methods of monitoring. A major method will be to rely on concerned employees that may come forward with some information that they see and feel that it is wrong. There will be an anonymous method to report concerns through the ethics office. Additionally, the company will set up a toll-free number with an outside company to document concerns. The ethics office will also rely heavily on the use of surveys sent out to employees on an on-going basis. These surveys will be voluntary and will be used to track trends with ethics, both positive and negative. The major types of misconduct that will be of importance will be stealing, fraud, and other more “white collar” types of crimes that usually are not as obvious in everyone’s day-to-day lives.

Auditing employee misconduct
The approach that will be taken will be one that keeps in mind both the internal and external types of auditing, on a continuous on-going basis. Internally, the use of employee interaction with the ethics staff will be of great importance as well as the use of surveys. The toll-free number for employees to call in to will be managed by a third party organization and will submit a report to the ethics staff. For external types of audits, I would focus more on lawsuits being brought against the company as well as attaining any information form third party social auditing service organizations that focus on social responsibility. With these efforts, a stronger tie with the local community, stockholders, and stakeholders will bring about more transparency and trust with one another.

Reporting employee misconduct
There are ways as mentioned above that I would focus on for the prime methods in reporting employee misconduct. These include direct interaction with employees that believe a fellow employee may be interacting in unethical behavior, a toll-free number to call on an anonymous basis, and the use of surveys to gauge the ethical climate and analyze positive and negative trends. After compiling the facts, a report would be filed with the leadership of the company as well as to any relevant stakeholders, to include the public, thus strengthening transparency and trust. If there are employees that have caused harm to the company, those individuals would be terminated provided that the offences caused damage to the integrity of the company and its operations.

Task D – Develop a section that explains your plan to do the following: 1) Evaluate the effectiveness of the ethics program after implementation 2) Provide suggestions to improve the ethics program after implementation.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the ethics program after implementation
How this can be accomplishes is by conducting periodic surveys to employees to gauge the climate of the company. This can be done on an on-going basis and utilized during the annual ethics training, or maybe even a couple months before that so data can be compiled and discussed at the training sessions. This will also be discussed with the social auditing services, to get a good indication on what an external third party can offer as improvement options.

Provide suggestions to improve the ethics program after implementation.
I would do this by continuing to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. There may be some tweaks and small changes that occur over time to perfect the effectiveness of the program as much as possible. The idea would be to continue to have a strong program to prevent ethics crisis’s, not as a reactionary tool when one occurs. I would stress prevention, not reaction. Asking employees what changes they may have in mind also is something that should be a part of the improvement process. They are the people that see more on a daily basis than any planner with his or her team may experience.