Ethics- How Governance practices encourage ‘Doing the Right Thing’

At Akira Consult, we were very intentional about our #purpose , which can be found in our corporate slogan ‘The right things, the right way’. It sounds simple doesn’t it? After all, most of us have the word #integrity as a corporate or personal value and #truthmatters as our social media tags.

But what does #governance have to do with maintaining #ethicalpractices in organisations? One of the key roles of a #companysecretary or a governance professional is to be the promoter of these values in the organisation. Granted the tone must come from the top ( #ceo ), but as a professional requirement and as well a risk mitigation tool, governance must lead the way.

Ethics and Integrity speaks to how an organisation treats both its internal and external #stakeholders which includes staff, clientele and the communities that it impacts. A company should have a robust corporate #culture that embeds integrity and promotes ethics in all its dealings. A place to start is to look at the 10 principles of the #unglobalcompact and ensure that culture preserves Human Rights, Good labor practices, Safe environmental practices and avoids Corruption.

After culture, put in place policies that protect these values; e.g a Code of Conduct and Ethics and ask employees to commit through their contracts or providing annual declarations. Have a whistleblower policy and safe reporting process and as well a conflicts of interest policy. Policies should be supported by training on why these matter towards a sustainable and ethical workplace. Beyond that, the organisation must have a zero tolerance policy for those that go against these policies, taking swift action that signal compliance. Rewarding ethical actions to embed the culture through policy is also key.

At the governance level, ethics and integrity should form part of Board discussions. It could be from a risk angle in the Audit committee or a policy and culture angle from a nominations committee. Some of the discussions that could be scheduled for discussion include organisational ethics, corporate citizenship, sustainability, stakeholder management, HR practices and Client relations.

In some jurisdictions and in governance best practice such as the King IV code, a specific committee – the Social and Ethics Committee is recommended, but also required for State Corporations, listed companies, public companies and companies who conduct public interest activities, due to their interaction with the public. For these, the committee is recommended to have an independent chair and majority of members to be non executive directors.

Finally after all this, an independent evaluation of whether the tone as regards governance, the top leadership and as well staff are congruent is necessary. That is where Akira Consult comes in- to shine a light into these spaces and asses on whether you are; ‘doing things the right way’ Talk to us today!