Are you ready to raise your professional profile and work with other E&C leaders on trending issues? Now’s your chance to join an ECI Working Group with the goal of producing a practical, action-oriented report for the benefit of ECI’s members.
ECI Working Groups are made up of ECI members that collaborate to create white papers on specific issues and topics relevant to our community. The goal of each Working Group is to research, write and share White Papers on the latest trends and issues. If you haven’t seen our library of whitepapers written by our Working Groups yet, don’t miss out. The Whitepaper Library is one of many great assets available to members!
Now is your chance to shine! ECI is opening up opportunities to participate in Working Groups, and there are great reasons to join:
Increase your expertise on specific E&C topics, while learning how other peers and organizations are addressing similar challenges.
Expand your network of E&C leaders.
Raise your professional profile and publish original material important to the E&C community.
Senior E&C professionals have additional opportunities to chair Working Groups and to present findings to E&C community.
Don’t wait! Spots are filling up fast.
Participation in Working Groups is a member benefit in ECI. Please login to complete the Working Group Volunteer Interest Form. Contact membership@ethics.org if you are not a member and are interested in joining a Working Group or if you need additional assistance.
The murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, closely following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, was one of a series of tragedies and high-profile cases that prompted global racial justice protests and led to intense public dialogue about racism, discrimination and the abuse of power (RDAP)...
Headlines about repeated financial scandals rocked the ethics & compliance (E&C) world in the early 2000s and highlighted the importance of top leadership and their role in culture. “Tone at the top” rightly became the foundation of E&C programs. It was clear that without top leadership setting the proper tone...
Metrics, including the analytics behind the data, are increasingly important in ethics and compliance (E&C). Not only do metrics showcase the effectiveness of a compliance program, they also demonstrate the value and impact of a successful approach to program sustainment. This means E&C can leverage metrics to set priorities, initiatives,...
In October 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic was arguably at its peak. The “normal” stressors of life and work seemed to pale in comparison as this unexpected crisis loomed over the globe. The Ethics and Compliance Initiative (ECI) tasked a working group to explore how Ethics and Compliance (E&C) professionals could...
Building and implementing an E&C program is a challenging endeavor in organizations of any size. These challenges are compounded in multinational organizations, because E&C program elements must be implemented and sustained across multiple lines of business and/or legal entities. Organizations must contend with multiple governments and regulatory agencies. They must...
How does a company create a sense of connection to its purpose and values with new employees who have never met any of their colleagues in person? Can misconduct investigations be effectively conducted solely through video interviews? Are there unique risks that need to be addressed when a company has...
Expectations regarding the role of the corporation in society are shifting. As a consequence, many investors and companies are reexamining and adjusting the way they do business. For decades, the nearly unquestioned wisdom, at least in the United States, has been that, as economist Milton Friedman famously declared in 1970,...
Unconscious biases happen outside of our control and are ingrained habits of thought that can lead to error in how we perceive, remember, reason, and make decisions. Recognizing and understanding that all humans have biases and that these biases are neither good nor bad, is the first step to overcoming...
In 2016, ECI published the Blue Ribbon Panel report entitled “Principles and Practices of High-Quality Ethics & Compliance Programs” (the “HQP Report”). Since its publication, a number of ECI members have expressed interest in having additional guidance and/or a measurement framework to assist with assessing an ethics and compliance program....
Chief Ethics and Compliance Officers (CECOs), and the executives and boards to whom they report, often look for benchmarks to assess the quality of the ethics and compliance (E&C) programs. The U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Organizational Guidelines, which outline the seven elements of an effective compliance program, and the Department of...
When considering the undertaking of an organization-wide risk assessment, clarifying the scope of the risk assessment is an important first step. The appropriate methodology and assessment activities will differ depending on the scope of the assessment. The type of risk assessment is closely linked, and often drives, the scope for...
When considering how to build and support a respectful workplace, it is critical to understand and anticipate the common issues that can undermine that goal. Although disrespectful or uncivil conduct can take many forms, three of the most relevant ones currently are bullying, retaliation and harassment. Considering these issues can...
Why should the best and brightest professionals seek out careers in the Ethics and Compliance (E&C) profession? What training will they need, and how will their teams successfully confront emerging organizational and technological challenges? What educational opportunities will be available to support them? Will their careers in E&C keep them...
In September 2017, ECI formed a benchmarking group to review best practices in EA Programs. EAs, also known as Ethics Liaisons, are increasingly used and relied upon in organizations as an effective and cost-efficient element of an overall ethics & compliance (E&C) program. Typically, an EA is a regular, full-time...
Fundamentals of workplace and compliance investigations are what matter. Fairness, objectivity, and thoroughness, evenly applied through the continuity of investigative processes across the organization, will ensure reliable and defensible outcomes, while active remediation and consistent discipline flowing from findings protect the organization in the event of a legal challenge. The...
Retaliation in the workplace is detrimental to a healthy work environment. Most companies recognize this and take steps to address this issue. Although retaliation is defined in a number of ways, two basic elements are always present: an issue is raised, and the person who raised it suffers as a...
Most organizations are better at punishing misconduct than at rewarding ethical conduct.1 Organizations with even basic ethics and compliance (E&C) programs typically have established processes that govern how allegations of misconduct are investigated and how to hold accountable those found to have engaged in misconduct. Fewer organizations, however, have a...
It’s widely recognized that ethical leadership makes organizations function better. Ethical leaders model and communicate ethical values, guard employee’s interests, set ethical standards and take remedial action when employees act inappropriately. A range of studies show that ethical leadership builds morale, reduces the risk that employees will break the rules,...
Seven questions were asked about Ethics Liaisons; five were asked about Ethics Liaison Programs. The survey was distributed to single points of contact in ECI member organizations and was open for approximately two weeks. Thirty-six responses were received. This survey was done in partnership with DTE Energy.
Managing regulatory information is an important task in today?s business world. The timely identification, analysis and dissemination of new/proposed laws, regulations, enforcement actions and other key regulatory information is essential to effective compliance. Yet resource-constrained organizations struggle to efficiently and effectively identify and manage this information. In fact, to do...
The purpose of a self-audit is to assess whether an Ethics and Compliance Program is operating as intended. This audit procedure examines the effectiveness of an ethics and compliance program against the nine steps noted below. You can use these procedures for the nine-step process or for only those steps...
Conflicts of Interest (“COIs”) are among the thorniest issues that organizations and ethics and compliance (“E&C”) professionals face. There are a virtually infinite variety of situations that might create a conflict, existing as they do at the intersection of personal, family, financial and organizational interests. Additionally, because appearances are so...
Ethics and compliance (E&C) has become an identifiable function in many organizations today. In some cases, E&C programs are born out of necessity in the aftermath of wrongdoing. In many other instances, programs arise from an organizations voluntary investment in the strategic goal of conducting business with integrity. Regardless of...
History books and newspapers are filled with stories of individuals who make unethical choices that do an extraordinary amount of harm to others. But the vast majority of wrongdoing in workplaces isn?t committed by calculating sociopaths who choose whatever advances their desires, with no regard for the law, basic decency,...