Note-I asked the Two Tough Cookies if they could put together a series of blog posts wrapping up the lessons they have seen and learned and written about in their series of Tales from the Crypt. They graciously put together a series of posts on the seven elements of an effective compliance program from their 10 tales of Business Conduct. Today, Part II of a Three Part Series…

3. Exercise Due Diligence to Avoid Delegation of Authority to Unethical Individuals

This one is tough, especially in global organizations. In many countries, you simply cannot run a background check, as criminal records are not public. In others, you can run them, but the criminal offense must be related to the job to exclude the candidate from being hired.   In yet others, you can run them, but you can’t use them due to overly strict privacy rules. Then there’s the matter of cost relating to doing all this due diligence. The best thing you can do is determine the following:

• First, is your business subject to a potential FCPA violation? If you are not “at risk” of public corruption because you are not engaging at any level with foreign government officials, then half the battle is won. Of course, you still run the risk of commercial corruption (bribes, kick backs, etc. with trading partners), but at least the spectre of government sanctions is not looming so large over you.
• If you are “at risk” of an FCPA violation (you have interaction with govt. officials, including customs) have you developed a robust due diligence program, based on some corruption index to determine the level of due diligence required for your staff, your trading partners?
• Have you identified your red flags thoroughly to spot anomalies in your business that would signal a deeper view is recommended?
• Do you have staff to conduct the due diligence, or a vendor to do it on your behalf?
• Are background checks run on everyone, or just certain individuals, or certain risk areas?
• Have you taken a hard look at your gift policies to determine whether or not there are glaring holes that could give rise to inappropriate influence in business dealings?
• Have you taken cultural considerations under advisement in your gift policies? Are they more stringent, or lax, compared to the US? Are the gift policies in Russia different than the gift policies in the US, because someone convinced someone else that you just can’t get things done without greasing a palm here or there?
• Do you have a formal committee reviewing all charitable contributions, or, are ‘charitable contributions” acceptable as “facilitation” to get non-discretionary government functions moving along? Does your organization allow “facilitation payments” – if so, you better take a second, third, fourth look….

The point I’d like to emphasize here is that even companies that make it on the “World’s Most Ethical Companies” list also make it to the DOJ’s investigation list for foreign corruption, or violation of embargoes, sanctions, and the like. People interpret rules when the rules change, depending on the country. People then make mistakes in favor of what makes business sense to them, in their country, in their environment. You just have to make sure you’ve done what’s reasonable to prevent those mistakes.

4. Communicate and Educate Employees on Compliance and Ethics Programs

Here’s where the tone from the top, middle and bottom are key to your culture. This is probably the most important thing you want to measure. I am fond of saying 90% of a good ethics & compliance program is communication, and 10% is actions/deeds. While deeds do speak louder than words, it’s the communications – what you say, how you say it, what you mean by it, your intent – that frames up the actions of others.     So you want to measure

• Are the messages the same, the deeper you get into the organization? Is the understanding of the messages cascading from above the same the further down you go? Easy enough to measure with post-learning survey tools. Give all top, middle, and lower management the same “meeting in a box” and see if the understanding after delivery is the same. Reminds me of that campfire game, where the story starts at one end of the circle, and is completely different by the time the last person hears the tale. Your objective, of course, is to ensure that every person in the corporate audience hears the same message, and has the same take-aways, no matter who is telling the tale.
• What kind of audience do you have? Does everyone have access to a computer, or do you have the challenge of manufacturing workers, with multiple languages and facilities to manage, and no technical means of reaching them? Have you done what’s necessary to ensure your training and communications mechanisms address every type of audience, or are pockets left out of the mix?
• What learning aids do you have to help with understanding the code of conduct? Are the examples you use for harassment appropriate for your audience? Do you have a team of global reviewers who will not only preview your training, but offer suggestions on how to localize it to make it appropriate, meaningful and relevant to the teams they serve? If so, do they look at all communications pieces, or only certain ones? If only certain ones, which ones? And why?
• Are there any leaders who go above and beyond when you launch your annual or quarterly training? I had an Asian business President who made sure he took the course the first day it was launched, and then sent a message to his leadership team about what he learned from the course, and what he wanted them to take away to their teams after they took the course. All of his team had the course done within the first month. I wanted to clone the guy, I swear!

I’m also reminded of mandatory harassment training I gave in Brazil one year. I relied upon the canned on-line training to help with my meeting amongst management, who all spoke English well. I was planning on asking them to cascade the messages to their teams while I was there, but they pointed out that the training was a farce. Women, they told me, wanted wolf calls lobbed in their direction in Brazil – it was not only culturally acceptable, but encouraged. This was substantiated by the several women in the room. Check. Fortunately, I had other examples at the ready to use for a facilitated session, which I vetted with the women on the team prior to delivery. Lesson learned? Make sure your ethics & compliance steering committee has global membership, and are willing to preview your training and communications prior to launch to ensure cultural relevance. If you don’t do this, your ethics & compliance program will be perceived as a joke. Not a desirable outcome, I would say….

5. Monitor and Audit Compliance and Ethics Programs for Effectiveness

So, how do you measure a non-event? I often ponder…. The challenge in highly ethical organizations is that you have, at first blush, very little to measure. If everyone’s doing a good job, how do you measure effectiveness. Is it because you have a great program that you have absolutely no calls on the hotline? Or is it that everyone is trembling in fear of retaliation the reason for no calls to the hotline? Hmmm.

Some of the things you can measure include

• Indicators and ‘yardsticks’ – do you crawl, walk, or run to goals?
• Do you seek periodic stakeholder feedback (including E&C council input)
• What kind of documentation do you collect – trend analyses of HelpLine metrics, feedback on program enhancements as they are implemented, feedback on training and communications
• Do you routinely conduct a “Lessons Learned” exercise after substantiated hotline calls?
• Does your HR team engage in site assessments when a location, facility, or team seems to have a lot of issues that arise from a single manager or set of team leaders?
• How often are your Code, policies, procedures updated and reviewed?   Are they tested for readability and understanding? Are they just published, or is training introduced for new policies as they are issued?
• Do you conduct risk assessments and/or change training or communications based on perceived risk areas?

6. Ensure Consistent Enforcement and Discipline of Violations

Does your organization allow for mistakes? Many will say they do, but when the rubber meets the road, you will find that they can be unforgiving for some transgressions, and unbelievably forgiving for others…. You will want to measure

• Whether or not there appears to be wiggle room when folks stray. Deeds in this aspect do speak louder than words.
• Are roles and responsibilities clearly defined, with escalation clauses when things go wrong?
• Does your organization communicate when things go wrong as well as when things go right? I know one organization that struggled mightily when I suggested we let everyone know what actions we took for certain code violations. The attorneys were all worried that someone would sue, of course, but in the end, integrity prevailed. We were able to sanitize the situations in such a way to communicate what had been done, and what discipline was taken, without anyone learning personal details. Importantly, it drew a virtual line in the sand by publicizing transgression and discipline, so that people knew boundaries. Of course, this was after years of me observing that discipline seemed to be discretionary within the organization, and as a result, trust in management “doing right” was eroding significantly. It didn’t hurt that my observations were followed by multiple hotline calls saying the same thing… but it should never get to that point, should it?

Also measure whether or not policies and communications:

• Encourage reporting
• Identify resources to raise concerns
• Prohibit retaliation for good faith concerns
• Identifies management as the primary resource for issues or concerns
• The average timeline to resolve complaints
• Whether or not you benchmark reports that express fear of retaliation or unwillingness to consult with management first. This is tough to do, unless you build it in to your hotline reporting mechanism as a “customer service” function at the end of every call or report, actively soliciting this very feedback when a report is made.

7. Respond Appropriately to Incidents and Take Steps to Prevent Future Incidents

So, you are at the point where you have confidence you have the right policies and procedures in place to keep yourselves honest. But in case someone didn’t get the memo of “expected behavior” you have to make sure you respond appropriately, and take steps to avoid future missteps. One organization I worked at realized the culture of an acquired subsidiary was so awful that it opted to sell it off rather than try to fix it. They had other issues in the larger organization, but they knew a bad deal when they saw it, and took steps to rid themselves of an untenable position. Another organization I worked at kept throwing money at a subsidiary, when it probably would have been better to toss in the towel. Different organization, different results, neither perfect, but it fit them as they saw things.

When gauging the culture of your organization, some things you want to look at are the rewards and sanctions for behavior:

Positive rewards:

• Retention of employment
• Recognition
• Appreciation
• Commendation
• Monetary or stock reward

Negative sanctions:

• Termination or Suspension
• Demotion
• Probation
• Appraisal comments/warnings
• Reduction in compensation or bonus

You also want to measure your Performance Appraisal Systems, and look to see whether or not they include sections on:

• Demonstrated Ethics and values in workplace conduct
• Good communication skills
• Building trust with stakeholders
• Being fair or equitable
• Maintaining a high level of quality or integrity in decision-making
• Reporting Concerns
• Empowering subordinates to reporting concerns
• Training and development initiatives for the team

Tomorrow the Two Tough Cookies sum it all up…