Employee surveys are one of the most effective ways to measure corporate culture. By providing quantifiable data on workforce attitudes, surveys give companies the ability to benchmark against their own results, industry peers, and national averages to identify organizational strengths and weaknesses. Surveys are more than a “nice-to-do,” says Sara Weiner, consulting director for Kenexa, […]
Ethics & Culture
Posted inEthics & Culture
Want Strong Controls? Start With Respect
My experience over the last several years in corporate governance and internal audit finds that developing a culture of respect in the workplace is critical for a strong control environment. You can even find that expressed right in the COSO Internal Control Framework: “Control environment factors include the integrity, ethical values, and competence of the […]
Posted inEthics & Culture
Building Ethics Into the Compliance Program
Encouraging employees to engage in ethical behavior and effectively measuring ethical conduct are two of the most challenging aspects of building a strong compliance program. At the Compliance Week 2011 conference in Washington, compliance officers and ethics experts discussed the latest practices for instilling good ethics into the organization and ways to foster a culture […]
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Communicating Ethics and Compliance: ‘Keep it Fresh’
The secret to good ethics and compliance communication is to spruce up the delivery and not to be afraid to try new things, said speakers at Compliance Week 2011, which took place this week in Washington. “I think what’s next for me is Tweet Chat— I don’t know what it is, but I’ll try stuff, […]
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Fund Managers Need Better Ethical Disclosure
*/ /*–>*/ European fund managers should do more to disclose how they operate any investment funds that they market as “ethical”, according to an industry association. The market for ethical or “responsible” investing is booming in Europe, but there is no widely agreed understanding of what constitutes responsible investment, according to the European Fund and […]
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Ethics, Compliance, and Company Size
Like so much else on Twitter, the question shot out of nowhere and raced across my attention span: Are ethics and compliance harder to achieve at large companies, or easier? And like so much else on Twitter, I shot back an answer without really thinking: “Ethics is harder at large companies; compliance is harder at […]
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Axioms and Proof of Compliance
I doubt that many of us remember our high school geometry class fondly. For most, geometry was a difficult topic, detached from practical life, and the first time we encountered formal proofs and deductive reasoning. Constructing mathematical proofs starts from assumed facts, followed by a series of statements that ultimately justify a theorem. This often […]
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Takeaway From Facebook Settlement: More Complaints, Scrutiny
Employers should expect more scrutiny of policies that address employee use of social media following the settlement of a closely watched case that involved an employee who was fired following the posting of negative remarks about her boss on Facebook. American Medical Response of Connecticut, Inc., reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board […]
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E.W. Scripps Company Names Chief Ethics Officer
The E.W. Scripps Company, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based news and information enterprise, has announced the appointment of a new corporate secretary and chief ethics officer, following a shift in roles of two current employees. Effective immediately, Julie McGehee, currently vice president of compensation and benefits, takes on the additional role of corporate secretary. Her new responsibilities […]
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Facebook Firing Tests Social Media Policies
Employers struggling with how to handle workplace use of social media have a new worry: Your social media policy may violate federal labor laws. In October, the National Labor Review Board filed a complaint against American Medical Response of Connecticut alleging that the ambulance service company violated labor laws when it fired an employee for […]