Work-Ethics.com: Business Ethics Auditing and Human Resource Management

The Facilitator's Role in Ethics Training

- Dr. Samuel J. Juett

Now, you've committed to either beginning to provide or enhancing the ethics training you provide to your employees. You understand that your already over taxed human resource department may well see this as another task "dumped" onto their desks; however, someone has to make this training be a meaningful exercise.

You face choices. Maybe to meet the needs of your ethics program you are willing to sacrifice doing a good job, by just getting the job done. Maybe you recognize the return you will get when you bring in a qualified facilitator to make the program real, vigorous, challenging, and results oriented.

Work-ethics.com provides the solution to this problem. We are experts at facilitating ethics training, and our team will challenge your employees to ethics training that surpasses their expectations of "…here we go, another training session by another consultant."

How do we do it?

As the facilitator selected to lead the training session, we first become knowledgeable about your company's code of ethics and other compliance requirements you have with policies and procedures. We encourage and expect the participation of senior management with the ethics training facilitators. This is one way to demonstrate their personal commitment to, and support of, the core values and principles contained in your company's code of ethics.

Prior to conducting a training program, the Work-ethics.com facilitator becomes familiar with the case study we've developed that is tailored to your enterprise. While helping the training participants become familiar with the case studies, the facilitator considers how each of the scenarios is relevant to the training program's targeted audience. The facilitator also presents the company's position or rules on the issues raised by each scenario. Finally, the facilitator decides whether to present all the case studies in one training session, or to present them individually during different sessions.

To conduct the training session, Work-ethics.com distributes and briefly discusses your company's code of ethics. The facilitator reminds the audience that ethics training is important to your company's reputation and competitive standing in industry and that the company depends on each member of the audience to uphold the ethical values and principles contained in the company's code of ethics.

Your Work-ethics.com facilitator recognizes that everyone strives to perform his or her duties with integrity and pride, but ethics training is necessary because situations testing an employee's and company's commitment to ethical values and principles are common occurrences in today's competitive environment. Also, the facilitator will emphasize that in such a complex regulatory environment, employees with the best intentions may inadvertently violate company policy or the law simply out of ignorance.

Next, the facilitator will introduce and lead a discussion about the issues raised by the case study. We encourage each employee to participate actively in the training session and to ask questions or make observations throughout the session. The employee is made to feel as if his or her participation is a vital component of the training session.

Work-ethics.com facilitators will prepare company-specific discussion questions. At times, the open-ended question format used (while conducive to free discussion), can make it difficult for the facilitator to keep the group focused on the training objectives. Therefore, Work-ethics.com facilitators have an understanding of what each question is designed to elicit, and tactfully keep the group's discussion moving forward.