Ethics Program: Info Consultants Company

There is a rising level of scrutiny on the way organizations and their workers handle their activities. This is done to establish if their work is in accordance with general ethics. It is therefore necessary for any organization to respond not only to the scrutiny but to raise the standards of ethics among its members (Jones, Parker, and Bos 2005). In order to keep the customers’ loyalty, the first thing is to have high standards of ethics. When we begin Info Consultants Company, which will be serving nonprofit organizations that get their funds from the government, we will require a code of ethics that our workers will strictly follow. This is because we have decided to practice high standards of ethics in this business.

Code

We have therefore developed a code of conduct with the following objectives:

• to build up professionalism in the business and nurture behavior that shows a high sense of responsibility among the workers;
• to outline acceptable and unacceptable conduct;
• to put in place a tool to assess and evaluate members’ performance;
• And to create an entity for professional uniqueness and maturity.

We have therefore developed a code of conduct that will help us do business with the best transparency and fidelity (Henn, 2009). We have focused on shareholders, suppliers, competitors and the societies that will be around us. We consider society with respect to corporate social responsibility. Our vision concerning ethics is to uphold pure integrity, being honest, just and respecting all people in all situations.

Our code of ethics has the following; under the title of the workers, the working environment will not be discriminative in any situation, should keep members healthy and safe with their dignity in high esteem. Under the same point, we have focused on consistent communication to enhance understanding among all members in all situations (Henn, 2009). Human rights and employee privacy are also our big priorities. For our suppliers, we aim at sustainable business relationships bound by fairness. Under the title the client, we have a motto, “the Customer is our priority”. Customers’ satisfaction will be imperative for us. We know that we will have competitors just as we will be competing with those who are already in the field. Our aim will be to implement just and smart/clever competitiveness. In the spirit of social corporate responsibility, we will support the society in which we work through various activities that will benefit them. Finally, we are committed to safeguarding the environment.

The plan

We have developed a one-day training program that is aimed at equipping the workers with the company ethics. The program has the following components:

1. General moral requirements
2. Vision, mission and strategic objectives, in terms of ethics
3. The code of conduct which includes;
   • The employees
   • Suppliers
   • Customers
   • Competitors
   • Society
   • Environment
4. The code and leadership
5. Conformity to the code

Each section will take between 35 – 45 minutes with short breaks. At least three professionals will handle the training.

Monitoring

We will make sure that we document the code and to distribute it among all our members. In addition to the distribution, we will reiterate the code in any training conducted other than for ethics. Furthermore, we have created a checklist for making decisions when in a dilemma. The checklist is in form of questions that includes the following;

• How legal is the decision?
• Is the decision consistent with company’s policies?
• Who are the beneficiaries of the proposed action?
• Does the action match with Info Consultant’s code of ethics?
• Finally, what is the general outlook of the action?

In addition to the checklist, we have created a hotline, through which any member is free to report any misconduct. No one is immune from any investigation of alleged misconduct. If someone is found guilty, the consequences should be executed in accordance to the code.

Review and improvement plan

Apart from reiterating the code in every other training, we have also come up with an annual program that will help in continuous and intensive trainings for ethics (Weiss, 2008). We plan to have specific representatives from every department of the company to be the members of ethics reinforcement program, which goes on every year. These members are supposed to genuinely carryout a continuous analysis of the ethical needs in the company. They will be giving a report of their findings one moth prior to the scheduled training date. This report will help in the planning of the scheduled training session, where by the identified issues will be addressed in accordance with the code in place. We do this because we are certain that the society is very dynamic and we need to be at par with the changes that take place.

We project that the formulation of this code will help us to uphold good standards of ethics in all our involvement in business. We hope to set high standards of ethics that will help us attract the customers that we have targeted. We recognize that they are nonprofit organizations that receive most of their funds from the government and other donors. They therefore require high level of transparency to win the goodwill of the government and other stakeholders. We all believe that when we grow in terms of our funds, the society will be happy as we get involved in different activities of development among them.

References

Henn, S. K. (2009). Business Ethics: A Case Study Approach. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.

Jones, C., Parker, M. & Bos R. (2005). For business ethics. New York: Routledge.

Weiss, J. W. (2008). Business Ethics: A Stakeholder and Issues Management Approach. Natorp Boulevard: Cengage Learning.