Firms ‘lack ethics training’
By Conor Keane, Business Correspondent – Irish Examiner
One in four top Irish firms believes it is difficult to meet ethical and compliance demands without compromising financial objectives, a survey has found.
The RA Consulting survey of 91 companies uncovered pressure to compromise standards and an absence of business ethics training, monitoring and whistle-blowing systems.
RA Consulting director Peter Ryan said the findings point to a level of complacency with the potential to jeopardise business, employee and shareholder interests.
Though an overwhelming majority of respondents (91%) indicated that core ethical values were supported within their organisations, less than half providing training to employees or offered a means through which non-compliance could be reported anonymously.
While respondents generally felt that ethical standards were promoted, only 57% actually monitored compliance levels and just 38% assessed employees’ commitment to such standards said the survey.
Almost a quarter of respondents (24%) said it was difficult to comply with strict ethical standards and not compromise financial objectives.
Further ethical problems were uncovered when 27% of respondents indicated that to succeed in business, there is pressure to compromise ethical standards.
It could be argued that pressure to meet investors’ expectations also has the potential to adversely impact upon compliance practices as only 51% of respondents agreed that shareholders’ interests are secondary to ethical considerations and 12% actually disagreed said RA Consulting.
Only 38% of firms adopted formal processes designed to assess employee commitment to the ethical guidelines espoused.
Results from the ISEQ sub-sample are particularly poor in this regard as just 18% of organisations assessed employee commitment in any formal manner.
The survey also found:
- 27% did not have policies or procedures in place to promote ethics and compliance
- 51% did not provide ethics or compliance training
- Only 38% had formal processes in place to monitor employee commitment to ethical guidelines