Before the Fall season is upon us, now may be a good time to evaluate what can be done further in your ethics training initiatives.

  Why? Because ethics is the spiritual glue that holds your organization together. An organization’s ethics determines its character, its health and ultimately, its success. An organization’s values—what it stands for, what your people believe—are crucial to your competitive process. Indeed, values drive the business. Ethics must be brought to center stage.

You and I know this, yet the process of stepping back and taking a good hard look at how things are going, needs to happen more than we think.

To help with the analysis of where you are and where you may want to go in this endeavor, here’s a checklist to help you.

1. Examine your code of ethics (not code of conduct), i.e. how long ago was it written, who wrote it, who had input in its development and if it is older than three years, re-examine how relevant it is.

2. Is your code of ethics stated negatively or positively?

3. Has your ethics training been varied, customized, applicable, and ongoing? If not, why not? If so, how are you measuring it?

4. If your training budget was not a issue, what other options for training would you like see take place? How often? By whom?

5. Who provides your ethics training and how is it working for your organization?

6. Is your ethics training as important as your compliance training?.i.e a top priority, funded well, and supported by leadership.

7. What needs to be done by the end of the year, to fulfill the goal of ethics training for all employees? How will you accomplish this?

8. If your organization is an international company, how do you approach a global ethics initiative? Is it working?

As you reflect on these questions, please keep in mind that the focus here is on ethics not compliance, in being proactive in your training and being able to track productivity, behavior and morale to that same training.

The compliance/ethics groups on Linkedin, I have found, are a vast ocean of experience, training and wisdom that each of us can tap into when the need arises. Use these eight questions as a springboard for further analysis and further ideas for training and then when you identify a need, a lapse, etc. and don’t know where to get further information, ask your colleagues for help with ideas, resources and research.