Fishburn Hedges has announced the launch this week of a corporate
ethics unit, which will audit the extent to which clients’ ethical
practices are communicated to their external and internal stakeholders
and advise on communicating these practices better.
A survey undertaken in conjunction with the Institute of Business
Ethics, and released to coincide with the launch, indicates that the PR
industry does indeed have a role to play. More than half of the 178 top
500 companies surveyed revealed that they had codes of conduct or ethics
but failed to communicate the fact to their staff and customers. While
paradoxically, three-quarters of these corporate companies said that the
rationale for having codes in place was to safeguard their
reputations.
On this issue, the UK lags about five years behind the US where
corporate ethics are enshrined in legislation. However, the UK could
follow suit.
We already have the public interest disclosure act which offers
protection to whistle-blowers. There are already a handful of companies
which specialise in corporate ethics, but PR practitioners, both
in-house and consultancy, need to gain control of the process. By
failing to communicate their ethical practices to staff, companies
immediately risk failing to meet their own standards through the
ignorance of their employees.
There is a concern that by disclosing the terms a code of conduct, firms
risk being pilloried for any failure to comply. But this is a risk that
needs to be taken. The communication of a code of conduct can lay a
valuable framework for handling potential crises. And, as The Body Shop
has shown, ethical positioning can be turned into a positive platform.
