The continuous stream of high profile corporate scandals has placed the spotlight on managing business ethics. Corporate leaders under pressure from shareholders, employees, regulators and the media, to demonstrate that they are driven by a profound sense of integrity and understand the value of building a corporate ethical culture. Our work relates to management leadership in this context – our focus is on the ethical issues as distinct from those that come under the heading of auditing and legal. Our focus is on pragmatic management actions.
Global Integrity Management:
Managing ethics starts with the Board of Directors. We believe that Boards must review current corporate approaches, launch new initiatives, oversee existing management strategic and independently determine if a strong corporate ethical culture is being built. This involves a set of key components and Vogl Communications in working with business leaders on these will, as appropriate, involve additional experts, notably at the Ethics Resource Center.
We focus on 8 key sets of actions that establish an effective Global Integrity Management process include:
- Commitment - How should Boards of Directors structure themselves to ensure that they focus well on ethics, that they stimulate good ethics across the corporation, that they obtain first hand reports on progress in this area – that they can sleep well at night knowing that an ethics scandal is not brewing? The starting point is building meaningful commitment by Board members – they have to recognize that ethics is the central component of good corporate governance and it is not one that can be just left to the corporate lawyers and auditors.
- Accountability - The Chairman –Chief Executive officer has to recognize – and be seen as recognizing – that she/he is the corporation's Chief Ethics Officer and is accountable for all aspects of the corporation's ethical behavior. How can the CEO achieve this? What actions must she/he take and what position needs to be created as a direct report to the CEO to ensure that this function attains top priority attention?
- Policies - The Board with top management must review in detail the corporation's values and ethics policies. Are they appropriate to current conditions? Do they keep pace with the fast changing business world? Are these policies understandable to all and pragmatic? Is there real flesh on the bone of the Corporate Code of Conduct? Is the Code in line with SEC guidelines? We look at these issues and we recommend that clients work on these issues with us and with the Ethics Resource Center.
- Audiences - Who are the key audiences that the corporation's leaders must address (and convince) when they formulate ethics policies? Which are the prime internal corporate audiences and the key external ones – from NGOs to the SEC ?
- Programs - Policies are only as good as the strategies and implementing programs that accompany them. How should these be structured to have the greatest impact on target audiences? How can strategies be developed to ensure they are continuous, consistent and global in scope? A key aspect of this work relates to employee training.
- Monitoring - Programs that are not effectively monitored tend, over time, to become redundant. Complacency sets in. Scandal follows. How should ethics programs in corporations best be monitored?
- Communicating - Policies and programs must be excellently communicated to internal and external audiences – how is this best achieved? This has become a crucial issue for corporate reputation management. (also see SEMINARS & LECTURES).
- Leadership and Alliances - Corporations cannot remain passive on this front. Laws are being changed. New rules and regulations are being set – not just at home in the US but overseas. Corporations need to sit at the negotiating tables, influence outcomes, pro-actively be seen to be ethics leaders. How should they best attain these goals?
Presenting the Issues
Our services of presentations and seminars seek to:
- Build knowledge of the most critical issues on the international agenda likely to impact global business behavior.
- Provide context for the key issues by relating them to current domestic and international trends in economics, competitiveness, politics and NGO activities.
- Focus on the key issues of reputation management in terms of prime corporate stakeholders.
- Analyze the key pressure groups and the critical individual issues, such as corruption, labor standards and government relations.
- Strengthening global training programs to ensure that employees fully understand the importance of the code of conduct to the corporation and what the code really means.
Also see SEMINARS & LECTURES
The Integrity Report
How can corporations most effectively report to the public – their shareholders, regulators, employees, retirees, the media – on the progress they are making to ensure that the corporation's programs in the ethics and social responsibility areas are effective? Demands for this kind of accountability are rising rapidly.
Our answer is the Integrity Report. We believe enormous value derives to companies like Shell, Rio Tinto and numerous others, by publishing outstanding annual reports of this kind. We offer services to clients to assist them to develop an Integrity Report that can con cover the following areas of corporate activity:
- Rule of Law issues - e.g. compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
- Ethics and Compliance Standards – e.g. corporate performance relative to its Code of Conduct.
- Privacy – e.g. corporate actions to maintain confidential employee personal details.
- Corporate Good Governance – e.g. progress on evolving a Board with distinct independence in some key areas, such as executive compensation.
- Corruption and Money Laundering – e.g. actions taken to ensure foreign employees are totally informed and trained in U.S. laws on these matters.
- Environmental issues (sustainable development) – e.g. evaluating corporate progress relative to domestic and foreign regulations and evolving new international standards.
- Labor issues – e.g. ensuring that all overseas employees, including at sub-contracted companies, are fairly and decently managed.
- Human Rights Issues – e.g. ensuring foreign affiliates are not exploiting in any way local people and communities in which they may have operations.
- Science & Technology - e.g. reporting on new developments in these areas and their acceptance relative to NGO criticisms that may exist.
- Philanthropy – e.g. explaining some of the philanthropic actions in the social responsibility arena – from the environment to healthcare to local community support – that may have been pursued by the corporation.
Corporate Ethics Internal & External Communications
Vogl Communications has been engaged in corporate communications since 1990 and aspects of our approaches are detailed in a Spring 2001 article by Frank Vogl in The Strategist, the Journal of the Public Relations Society of America.
As we look at the structures and goals of corporations in the communications area – in general and with regard to ethics – we recommend that the PR function have skills and capacities in the following integrated areas:-
- Global PR - Establishing a corporate PR capacity that has the global skills to formulate international strategies and implement effective leadership ethics PR programs.
- Tracking Capacity - The PR function needs to be the eyes and ears for top management on every aspect of new developments in corporate ethics, governance and social responsibility.
- Internal Communications - The PR department needs to actively work with Human resources and the corporate Ethics Office to ensure excellent employee ethics communications (at home and through foreign affiliates).
- Issues Knowledge - The PR department needs to include individuals who can talk with great credibility to external audiences about the corporation's approaches to ethics and social responsibility.
- Understanding the Players - The PR department must know the organizations that are influencing public opinion on corporate ethics and globalization and be able to interact with them. It must know which are the key conferences and who best should represent the corporation at these and influence outcomes.
- Philanthropy - The PR department needs to work with the corporate and other foundations to ensure the distinctions are seen by external audiences between corporate philanthropy and other social responsibility programs.
Also see GLOBAL PR
