Ethics & Code of Conduct

Why Practiced Ethics & a Code of Conduct Are Critical to Your Organization

We are living in a new era of corporate governance that demands your organization pay close attention to practiced ethics and legal compliance. This commitment must be shared by everyone – from front line employees to the highest-ranking executives.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002¹, the Federal Sentencing Guidelines² and recent amendments to the Federal Acquisition Regulations³ require education of the entire workforce on ethical behavior, as well as your Code of Conduct. Beyond ensuring compliance with these new rules and guidelines, effective ethics and legal compliance programs come with a proven, bottom line ROI⁴.

For these reasons, every 21st century employer should adopt a comprehensive ethics and compliance program that includes high-quality, effective training. Training must go beyond the communication of policies to truly impact behavior, facilitate cultural change and reduce risk.

ELT's Next-Generation Solution

ELT's Ethics & Code of Conduct program is a unique, completely customizable online training program and communication tool that will:

• Educate employees and managers on the basics of your Code and your compliance program. Course content is engaging, highly customizable and can be tailored to specific populations in your workforce.

• Help your employees and managers build essential skills to recognize and respond appropriately to ethical dilemmas.

• Provide comprehensive electronic tracking and documentation that proves training has been completed and the Code has been reviewed and understood by everyone.

• Positively impact workforce behavior and help your organization to build a cultural commitment to practiced ethics and compliance.

What Makes the ELT Solution Unique and Superior?

• CONTENT

ELT's approach to and investment in courseware development is unique and truly unmatched. Recognizing the critical importance of accurate and effective content, ELT's Ethics & Code of Conduct course features Legal Engineering™ -- a rigorous and intensive development process that draws from the knowledge and skill of the country's most experienced and sophisticated attorneys, consultants and academics.

Who are ELT's subject matter experts for the Ethics & Code of Conduct course?

• As with all ELT courses, a select team of Littler Mendelson attorneys who specialize in workplace compliance. Littler's Corporate Compliance Practice Group currently chairs the Employment & Labor Law Domain for the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG), and is a founding partner of OCEG⁵. Because Ethics & Code of Conduct training touches every employee, it is a cornerstone initiative of HR and/or Employee Relations. Littler brings unparalleled expertise in this domain.

The global law firm, Shearman & Sterling. A select group of attorneys with specific expertise in Codes of Conduct and corporate governance played an integral role in course development, from conception to final release. Shearman has more than 1,000 attorneys across the world with practices focused upon Corporate, Litigation, Tax, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits, and Antitrust.

• A Fortune 500 ELT client who partnered with us in course development to infuse the program with an in-depth, practical business perspective. This organization has a well established and advanced ethics and legal compliance initiative.

• A team of leading ethics and HR consultants from major law, accounting, and consulting firms.

• A team of ethics professors, to include the theoretical and academic perspective.

The result of ELT's extensive and hands-on content development team is an Ethics & Code of Conduct course reflecting the latest thinking of today's leaders in ethics and compliance solutions. Through our Legal Engineering™ process, this content is transformed into easily understood training material.

Our subject matter experts are deeply involved in course development and ongoing maintenance. In an industry overly focused on developing volumes of course titles and selling library subscriptions, ELT's attention to quality and detail is what sets us apart. We offer your organization a truly exceptional solution, becoming your expert training and risk management partner. Our focus allows us to invest enormous time and resources into the courseware your organization uses the most, and that has the greatest impact on your ethics and compliance program.

• INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND PRODUCTION VALUE

In keeping with our commitment to quality, the Ethics & Code of Conduct course features ELT's Working People™ story-based training template. Unlike other scenario-based training programs, ELT's courseware is driven by a compelling, global ethics and compliance story line that creates dramatic momentum and drives users to complete the program. Every situation is based on actual cases and real events.

ELT uses professional actors, writers, directors, producers and photographers to create high production value courseware that reflects the importance of your organization's ethics and compliance program. Learners are engaged in a truly interactive, cutting-edge experience that draws upon the universally understood modalities of film and television.

Given the importance of effective ethics and compliance training, as well as the expectations of your media-savvy workforce, your organization cannot afford to utilize rudimentary online learning. These are programs that feature primarily text-based instruction, a "talking head" lecture style and low quality media elements such as cartoons and generic stock photos. ELT's Ethics & Code of Conduct course features the highest quality media elements and instructional design, while providing you with limitless customization capabilities (see below).

Course Overview

The Ethics & Code of Conduct Course covers the following key topics:

• The importance of practiced ethics and compliance, integrity and transparency.

• The individual responsibility shared by every employee in the organization.

• How to recognize and respond appropriately to ethical dilemmas.

• The role and importance of your Code of Conduct. Specific compliance issues include, but are not limited to:
  
  • Antitrust (Intro and Advanced)
  • Asset Protection
  • Competing and Dealing Ethically
  • Confidentiality
  • Conflicts of Interest
  • Corporate Opportunity
  • Diversity
  • Document and Records Protection
  • Diversity
  • Ethical Decision Making
  • FCPA
  • Fraud
  • Gift Giving and Receiving
  • Government Contracting
  • Harassment and Discrimination
  • Insider Trading
  • Pretexting
  • Privacy
  • Reporting
  • Safety

• The resources available within your organization to address ethics and compliance challenges, including reporting channels.

• The benefits of practiced ethics and compliance, from risk management, to improving the working environment, to bottom line ROI.

These key topics, and many more, are addressed through compelling story-vignettes, interactive exercises and an extensive Q&A tool. Through our flexible customization capabilities, the Ethics & Code of Conduct course can also include content specific to your organization and/or industry.

 

---

1 Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-204 § 406(a), 116 Stat. 745, 789 (codified at 15 U.S.C.A § 7264(a) (West. 2002 & Supp. 2003)).

2 U.S. SENTENCING GUIDELINES, §8B2.1(b)(4)(B); http://www.ussc.gov/2004guid/8b2_1.htm.

3 See FAR 3.10, FAR 52.203-13 and FAR 52.203-14.

4 http://www.littler.com/publications/04Strategic%20Initiatives%20White%20Paper.pdf. (See multiple studies referenced on pages 35 - 37.)

5 OCEG is a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to establishing guidelines for legal compliance in the workplace. OCEG is composed of all the major accounting firms, financial firms, major businesses, government representatives, and academic institutions. It has 12 overlapping legal domains, one of which is Employment and Labor Law. (See www.oceg.org.)