Page 23 - PCCA Journal 1st Quarter 2012

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PCCA Journal|1
st
Quarter 2012
23
an ethical reputation was crucial for attracting young talent,
keeping repeat clients, and pursuing strategic partnerships.
If customers do not require bidders to have and abide by an
ethics code to compete for projects, why would a contractor
spend precious resources to create and maintain an ethical
program? The short answer is that many do not. That does
not necessarily make those companies unethical. It means
they have yet to understand the business need to institute an
ethics program.
For firms looking at developing an ethics program, some
questions to ask include:
What are your firm’s core values?
How is your firm’s culture reinforced with those in the
field or with new recruits?
Would you be able to identify ethical breaches if they were
occurring in your firm?
What lines of communication are open to employees with
feedback? What anonymous avenues are there?
Have you changed on-boarding or annual training pro-
grams significantly following bouts of company growth?
How might ethics tie into existing corporate priorities like
leadership, corporate governance, compliance, and risk
management?
Have you conducted a risk assessment recently? Do you
know where your company’s vulnerabilities are?
Looking at your key competitors and clients, can you afford
not to have an ethics program?
While ethics programs can be a stand-alone component
of corporate training, FMI’s experience is that the great-
est return on investment is realized where the program is
embedded in the corporate strategy. A program that calls
attention to company goals, clarifies the company’s direc-
tion, and issues clear directives for staff can be galvanizing,
especially during times of thin backlog and low morale. The
integrity chain established the connection between profit and
integrity through the relationships that constitute the design
and construction industry and result in repeat business and,
ultimately, profitability. Now more than ever, your reputation
impacts our bottom line. Now is the time to focus on ethics
within your company.
Sabine Hoover is an FMI research consultant, www.fminet.com.
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