CODE OF ETHICS

Beyond compensation and benefits, HR teams are now tasked with challenges like fostering diversity in the workforce, addressing issues of inequality and setting standards around workplace conduct. Often, human resources ethics policies around these issues can directly impact how a company attracts and retains talent. According to a recent report , for example, 79 percent workers said they would not accept a job with a higher salary from a company that has failed to take action in sexual harassment cases. While HR ethics conversations that challenge the status quo in the workplace are marks of progress, they require HR departments to make tough ethical decisions. Know the laws As a representative of an organization, HR professionals need to make tough decisions and hold employees accountable for wrongful actions—and that's not an easy task. To do so effectively requires confidence and authority. Knowing important labor laws and compliance practices will help m...

Overexpansion A decade ago, when Subway was destroying competitors with its $5 Footlong offer and a reputation for health thanks to its Jared commercials, the company expanded aggressively. The chain’s founder, Fred DeLuca, at one point said that Subway could have 100,000 global locations. At the end of 2006, the chain had 20,721 locations. By the end of 2011 it operated 25,285 units, a unit growth of 22%. Keep in mind that period included the worst recession in 75 years and one in which the restaurant business lost sales. Loss of its Marketing Subway’s immense growth could be attributed to a pair of marketing campaigns: Jared and the $5 Footlong. It lost both of those. It’s difficult to overstate the problems created for the company by the 2015 arrest of Jared Fogle to child sex charges. Fogle had helped give Subway the perception that it was healthy, and that perception carried the chain for years and even lifted other sandwich chains’ own health perc...

Unethical behaviour in the financial services industry has not only had a huge, negative global financial impact; it’s also been very costly in terms of reputation and brand—which does not bode well for the future of financial services as a whole.  Millennials’ are increasingly unwilling to work in banking, insurance, and capital markets. They want to work for ethical organisations and are also distrustful of the financial services industry in general—being very wary when it comes to selecting financial partners. The result? Financial services firms are increasingly challenged to attract Millennials both as employees and as clients. This situation also opens opportunities for financial services disruptors. https://youtu.be/gTV88FlevFA How ethical failure is impacting the banking sector Recently, Accenture (in partnership with Principia Advisory) spent several months conferring with bankers, academic experts, and industry observers to understand the impacts of this crisis, wha...