PILLAR ONE

Awareness of the Ethics and Compliance Program and Resources

PILLAR ONE

Awareness of the Ethics and Compliance Program and Resources

What it is we aim to measure:

Familiarity with the assets and efforts of the compliance and ethics function. In other words, do your employees understand the resources available to them? Can they ﬁnd the code and applicable policies? Are your communications resonating?

Topics covered in the assessment:

Ability to locate the code, policies and other ethics and compliance resources
Whether behavioral expectations are communicated and understood
Confidence in the company adhering to its values
Whether communications from the ethics and compliance function are received

Why it matters:

Employee awareness of the E&C program and resources is at the heart of an ethics and compliance function’s success; it is important to know if it has the proper reach with the employee base. Awareness is the first step toward fostering a strong ethical culture. Employees cannot follow expectations or access resources they are unaware of. Measuring awareness identifies gaps that could undermine compliance efforts. By regularly assessing perceptions, organizations can ensure that their ethics and compliance programs are both understood and trusted by employees, ultimately fostering a culture of accountability and integrity.

What the data says:

This is an area where companies tend to perform well, as a reﬂection of the amount of effort companies have put into developing and rolling out these aspects of their programs.

For example, across Ethisphere’s data set:

91%

of employees know where to find the code of conduct.

92%

of employees know how to report misconduct.

91%

of employees who are aware of their company values believe their company follows them.

PILLAR ONE

Awareness of the Ethics and Compliance Program and Resources

How Ethisphere clients have used the data and insights:

As the data shows, most companies do well when it comes to employees knowing where to ﬁnd E&C resources such as the code of conduct. Opportunities for improving ethics and compliance program awareness tend to be isolated to specific teams, locations, or business units. Upon knowing this information, companies can then ﬁx the problem.

For example, one company discovered that employees didn’t use an intranet because they viewed it as outdated and difﬁcult to access. Another ethics and compliance team updated communications that weren’t translated into local languages.

Top Tips for Your Program:

Focus on making the Code of Conduct and related written standards as easy to access as possible. Review where the Code is stored on organization’s intranet and, if relevant, public-facing website. A good rule of thumb is access in three clicks or less.

Verify employees are, in fact, accessing the organization’s written standards by reviewing available access metrics. Do certain employee segments, such as those in retail or manufacturing environments, require additional considerations?

Are teams with lower favorability scores in this pillar dealing with a lack of access or a lack of understanding? Follow up interviews may yield insights as to the root cause of low program awareness.

KEY INSIGHTS AND STRATEGIC OUTCOMES

Learn about Sony’s

insights and outcomes from benchmarking

ethical culture

We thought we really had to be more comprehensive in gauging employee perceptions of our program. We picked the Ethisphere Assessment because it looked at all aspects of our program, including areas we have been focusing on, like awareness of resources, our employees’ level of comfort reporting concerns, and their perception of organizational justice. We also liked the fact that it took less than 10 minutes for most employees to complete the entire survey, and that we could benchmark it against peer companies."

Kathleen FranklinGlobal Ethics & Compliance Strategy Leader, Sony