Ethics Program For A Business - Assignment Example

An Ethics Program for a Consultancy Firm 18 November Introduction As management experts love to say, do things right the first time. For public services firms such as a consultancy firm that deals mostly with advising non-governmental groups, an ethics program put in place right from the very start can avoid many headaches later on. New consultancy firms that deal with the NGOs need to put ethics above everything else since it is very easy to get waylaid by the intricacies of politics. Non-profit organizations are usually the charitable organizations that derive most of their operating funds from various donors. In this regard, the government also puts in considerable amounts as donations to the non-profits that help the government in rendering public services and other socially-relevant works. There are many issues involved when doing non-profit work but foremost among them is the proper and accurate handling of donated funds. This means there should be proper accounting and audits of where the funds were spent and whether these funds achieved their intended purpose. When government funds are involved, then more reason for a consultancy firm to have a code of ethics adopted as early as possible. This should ideally be put in place before any of the criticisms from various stakeholders get loud enough (especially coming from politicians) to severely impede the effectiveness of these non-profit organizations to do their work. It can only mean the consultants will not deal with non-profits which have questionable dealings and other activities which do not jive with their stated public service mandate. There are practical and great reasons why a code of ethics should be put in place and primary among the reasons is that it is very easy to misrepresent the organization in the name of supporters, donors or the beneficiaries (Horton & Roche, 2010, p. 79). If funds are misused, credibility suffers. Discussion Management consultants follow their own code of conduct when dealing with clients. In particular, a consultancy firm that deals mostly with non-profit organizations which derive their funding mostly from government donations must pay close attention to how these funds were obtained from the donating government agency and how proper the disbursements were. This paper talks on the broader responsibilities of management consultants and will discuss on the ethical aspects of providing consultancy services to government-funded non-profit groups. My three-member company will adopt a code of ethics built along the following line, namely: Client Services – all employees of the consultancy firm, including the three founders, will avoid all forms of conflicts of interest. Additionally, everyone will endeavor to serve all clients with integrity, honesty, objectivity and utmost competence. This means everyone who is going to engage in consultancy should be well qualified on the area being undertaken or the topic or subject of the consultancy engagement. Whenever we believe our integrity is put into question due to influence that may affect our objectivity, we will voluntarily withdraw from a consultancy engagement so as to maintain our integrity at all times. Confidential Engagements – all consultancy work will be undertaken with the utmost confidentiality with regards to all aspects of the sensitive records and proprietary client data or information entrusted to us or uncovered by us during the course of our consultancy work. We will not use such sensitive information for our advantage nor divulge such information to other competing firms of the client. Further, we will accept consulting engagements when we believe our experience, expertise and competence will allow us to render the job required or produce the results expected from us. Whenever we believe that funds come from a dubious source or that there is a hidden agenda being conducted or advocated by the said non-profit, it is incumbent upon us to withdraw from the engagement or turn it down when offered to us. Consultancy Fees – we will enunciate our fees right from the start during discussions for the consultancy engagement. This means our management fees will be agreed in advance of the consultancy and independently of all other considerations. Fees will be based on cost or expenses which are mutually deemed to be reasonable, legitimate and commensurate with the consultancy work being contemplated hereby. The fees will be considered as within the bound of the industry and the consultancy scope will also be discussed and degree of responsibilities. As a matter of principle, we will not allow our consultancy firm to be used as a conduit for the misuse of public funds or as a channel for money laundering activities. Our consultancy work will be fully documented as to expense reports so that everything paid to us is fully accounted. In particular, our firm will not accept commissions or payments of any kind from third parties in connection with our recommendations to the client non-profit organization without consent or prior notification of such financial interests either in goods or services that form an integral part of our recommendations. The client is free either to accept or reject our recommendation. No code of ethics can possibly anticipate all kinds of situations that call for integrity. It is therefore expected that this code will evolve over time due to our experience. We will also be happy to accept inputs from the employees and external sources regarding the revisions or additions that may be adopted from time to time and other well-meaning advice from all individuals or any interested parties and in particular from non-profits themselves. We will always be open to suggestions and welcome constructive criticisms. Standards and Procedures – every employee must strictly abide by the code of ethics. The highest standards of ethical and moral conduct should be observed by all employees. The code of ethics is applied to all applicants in terms of their competence and relevant experience in the industry to which they will render consultancy services. Additionally, every employee should be someone whose integrity and honesty in unquestioned with a good public record. Towards this end, each potential employee or applicant will be required to produce an affidavit of good moral standing executed in his or her favor by two disinterested individuals who are well known in the local business or political community. A police clearance will also be required to be submitted as proof the applicant has not been cited for any crime in the past. These ethical standards apply to all employees regardless of rank or experience or academic credentials. An investigative committee will be formed whenever there are complaints or any questions about misconduct by any employee. Preferably, it should be a committee of peers or composed of at least one senior member (any from the three founding members) and 2 fellow employees of the person being investigated. This committee is tasked to establish findings of facts only and is recommendatory in nature with regards to either termination or retention of the employee concerned. Its findings are therefore only administrative in nature but do not preclude the filing of criminal or civil charges in the proper courts if and when warranted. Plan for an Ethics Training Program – developing an effective ethics training program will involve communicating to employees the values and organizational culture that will prevail at the consultancy firm despite its being a new player in the consultancy business. This means the three of us at the top will not tolerate any conflicts of interests that may arise in the course of our consultancy or any financial wrongdoing committed by any employee. The best way to inculcate the sense of mission and vision to all employees concerned will be through seminars to be both conducted in-house by the three founding members of the firm as well as hiring an outside third-party firm that is an expert in conducting seminars of this type. At the very least, we will contract the services of the Ethics and Compliance Officers Association to help us in planning and managing our own ethics training program. The ECOA is a group composed of ethics officers from private firms (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2009, p. 218). This group is very willing to share its knowledge and conduct seminars if requested. To maintain adequate operations while conducting the ethics training seminars, groups of five employees will attend the seminar to be conducted during the weekends, preferably on four consecutive Saturdays. Each batch of five employees will be given situational cases for them to decide on what to do and then their answers will be discussed within the group after each session. Each employee-attendee will be required to explain his or her decision to justify the action or actions taken. This will take into consideration the various ethical standards that are adopted by the consulting company as embodied in its code of ethics. Any revisions to the code of ethics will be disseminated to all employees through a memorandum that will appear as an update to the core values of the consultancy firm that should be adopted by everyone. A key point to emphasize is that infractions, no matter how slight, will not be tolerated at all. A good training program will employ role-playing exercises using hypothetical situations and then observe how employees will react and decide based on the issues introduced to a group. Key aspects of the ethics training program (Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2009, p. 221): 1. Help all employees identify the ethical dimensions of any business decision they make; 2. Give employees a means by which they can address ethical issues on each decision; 3. Make employees understand that ambiguity is inherent in most ethical decisions; 4. All employees should understand their actions define the company’s ethical positions; 5. Provide help to all employees to resolve their ethical dilemmas successfully; and 6. Stress at all times that unethical behavior can never be justified no matter what. Developing System for Monitoring – any system designed to monitor, detect, audit or report misconduct uses a variety of resources because the issue involved is very sensitive. The majority of companies use help lines (phone numbers that can be called to report anything) to encourage whistle-blowers to report any misconduct. These toll-free lines offer anonymity to give the employee some degree of safety and protection against possible retaliations. A monitoring system can include surveys, questionnaires, directly observing employee actions, an unannounced internal audit and internal investigations can also be conducted. For audits, it can be occasionally be undertaken by outside third-parties who are experts on doing this type of audit. Questionnaires are especially useful when trying to develop benchmarks to be used in assessing the compliance of employees to the firms stated code of ethics. It will be a gradual understanding of what types of unethical practices are being done and might give the reasons why these unethical practices are occurring inside the firm. An internal system should have as its twin pillars a whistle-blowers program and help desks which provide anonymity and protection so employees will be encouraged to report any perceived wrongdoing. The consultancy firm should weigh any such reports versus the usual office politics where someone will abuse the help line in order to get revenge on somebody. A thorough investigation will yield whether such report is true or not in the long run. A modern or more sophisticated technique or monitoring system now employs computer software that is specifically designed for employees to report their concerns, complaints, suggestions or plain observations of what they think is misbehavior by their co-employees (ibid. p. 223). The key to making the system effective is to enforce the necessary disciplinary action on employees who are found to be in violation of its code of ethics. The important thing is to make all employees aware the company will not tolerate the slightest infractions when it come government monies. Consistency in enforcement will make employees toe the line. A factor to make employees comply with the code of ethics is to let them internalize the values of a firm. Many employees usually wrongly think their individual actions will not impact the firm but the truth is that any individual unethical behavior is never in the best interest of the firm and will reflect badly on their employer since the firm is held responsible for any misconduct under the legal principle of command responsibility known as “let the superior answer” or in Latin as “respondeat superior.” (Nolo, 2010, p. 1). Reviewing the Ethics Program – the implementation of an ethics program should form part of a companys basic business strategy. In this case of the management consultancy firm, its code of ethics can be reviewed once a year to see how much compliance is being observed. The review will also look into how changes can be incorporated into any proposed revisions. This means the firms activities can be designed around achieving its mission and vision by a prudent use of its available resources taking into account various constraints. An example that can be cited is when a non-profit contracts for consultancy but with a hidden political agenda. The firm must refuse this engagement as it will be against its basic principle of maintaining at all times the no-conflict policy. Consultancy engagements can be limited to providing ways on how to improve organizational performance but not on how to launder ill-gotten money. A key precept is that the company should have a value system that transcends the personal value of any employee because a change in action and perception requires systematic and structured effort to correct a perceived mistake (Enz, 2009, p. 342). Conclusion Ethics is never an easy subject to deal with because it is at most time very nebulous. A main difficulty when confronted with ethical decisions is often the very thin line separating an action that is ethical from an action that already crosses the thin line. However, as a publicly- engaged management consultancy firm, it is incumbent on us to always try to abide by highest ethical standards at all times because most of our clients are non-profits that derived majority of their funding from the government. As such, there is the added dimension of making sure taxpayer money is used productively and responsibly. A key part of achieving this noble aim is to have a strong code of ethics within the consultancy firm because handling money in very ethical ways is one sure method to gain the trust and confidence of the general public and the industry in general. Any unethical act will always be unethical whether discovered or not. References Enz, C. A. (2009). Hospitality Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley and Sons, Inc. Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J. & Ferrell, L. (2009). Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. Mason, OH, USA: Cengage Learning. Horton, K. & Roche, C. (2010). Ethical Questions and International NGOs: An Exchange Between Philosophers and NGOs. Dordrecht, Germany: Springer. Nolo (2010). Employer Liability for an Employees Bad Acts. Retrieved from: http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-29638.html Read More