Institutionalization

Merely implementing an Ethics Management Program is not enough. An Ethics Management Program should be embedded into the being of a company. Therefore, when implementing the program, it should not only be communicated to employees as one will communicate a simple work procedure, It needs to touch each and every employees head, heart and hands:

Heads: Employees must be able to understand the ethics management program, in other words it must be communicated well to them. Questions to be answered to employees should be ‘What is happening?’ and ‘Why is it happening?’

Hearts: The ethics management program must acknowledge your motivation and emotions. The best way to achieve this is to get all stakeholders involved in the process from the start. Let employees elect their stakeholders who will also act as communication agents through the process.

Hands: Last but not least, the ethics management program must change behaviour by inspiring ethical conduct. Ensure that everybody in the organisation understand their roles and responsibilities and have the resources to act upon them.

An ethics committee could play a vital role in this process. They should establish and maintain the necessary ethics policies and strategies, ethics training initiatives and ethics communication strategies. The ethics office should also identify ethics advocates or champions at all levels within the organisation that can stimulate and sustain dialogue to ensure that ethics is effectively built into the structure and the culture of the organisation.