Compliance professionals generally agree that a code of conduct is an essential component to communicating the standards of behavior that a company expects of its employees. But how best to accomplish that goal? Well, that’s a whole other story.
Companies tend to break into two camps when it comes to what should be included in the corporate code of conduct. Some companies take a values-based approach, where they lay out a set of principles as a guide, while others go into far greater detail, providing chapter and verse on the specific policies of the company. Values-based codes tend to be much briefer than policy-specific codes. Which type of code is more effective is an open question for debate.
