Ethics or compliance: which is it?

ETHICS AND COMPLIANCE … Two sides of the same coin or different coins?

A topic that generated a surprising response with a recent social media post regarding the difference regarding compliance and ethics. Many organizations have compliance officers and ethics officers and they are often the same person, but the two roles are not the same. Compliance officers are typically attorneys, and this is because they care about the legal aspects of the organization’s actions, as well as the actions of the people who represent the organization. Keeping things on track for compliance is a relatively new job classification, and it’s growing over the last 10 years.

The same is true for ethics officers, a position that has grown in number over the past decade. I consider that both positions operate in concentric circles. While the compliance officer cares about rules and regulations and operates within those limits, the ethics officer is likely to be concerned about how certain behaviors on the part of the organization and its employees can cause harm even if it has not been violated. no royal law.

To explore this further, I questioned a respected compliance / ethics officer at a company I had the pleasure of working with a few months ago; I asked him if he would offer his views on compliance and ethics and his response is as follows:

“Simply put, ethics is the inner intangible that drives us. It is the value system, or the lack of it, that guides us when we make decisions in our daily actions. Compliance is much clearer. Compliance is about of following the rules, policies, regulations that are articulated in laws and internally drafted documents. There are consequences for violating those policies and regulations that can result in disciplinary action up to and including termination. Often there is no analysis related to intention. If you violate the rules, there will be consequences. Ethics is more about your personal values. I heard an expert say, either you have ethics or you don’t have them. Maybe the rules and rules are for those who have no principles guiding that they live by. Employees who do anything to get where they need to go need a structure in place to prevent them from crossing the line. For ethical behavior, they make employees follow the rules, not just because you have to, but because it’s the right thing to do. “

I believe the goal of successful organizations today is to maintain a workplace where ethical behavior is the norm, where employees are supported when they act with integrity, and where compliance issues become relatively rare. A balancing act, as I see it, when both functions are run from the same office, is keeping up with law enforcement, but not letting down things like ongoing ethics training that allows employees to make good decisions. After all, the ethically empowered workforce should result in fewer headaches for the compliance department!