More and more companies are, rightly, developing and publishing value statements and codes of ethics. The focus on such codes was encouraged by the Cadbury Report on corporate governance, which in 1992 recommended that companies should adopt one.
An ethics code may include the guiding principles the organization follows in conducting its business and relating to its stakeholders – employees, customers, shareholders (or other providers of finance), suppliers, and society in general. Acode will also summarize the ethical standards expected of employees. These may include conflicts of interest, the giving and receiving of gifts, confidentiality, environmental pollution, health and safety, equal opportunities, managing diversity, sexual harassment, moonlighting and political activity.
As suggested by Pickard (1995), HR practitioners can contribute to enhancing awareness of ethical issues by:
An ethics code may include the guiding principles the organization follows in conducting its business and relating to its stakeholders – employees, customers, shareholders (or other providers of finance), suppliers, and society in general. Acode will also summarize the ethical standards expected of employees. These may include conflicts of interest, the giving and receiving of gifts, confidentiality, environmental pollution, health and safety, equal opportunities, managing diversity, sexual harassment, moonlighting and political activity.
As suggested by Pickard (1995), HR practitioners can contribute to enhancing awareness of ethical issues by:
● deploying professional expertise to develop and communicate an ethics policy and field the response to it, holding training sessions to help people think through the issues and monitoring the policy;
● contributing to the formation of company strategy, especially touching on mission and values;
● setting an example through professional conduct, on issues such as fairness, equal treatment and confidentiality.
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