Ethics, conduct and integrity policies · 01
Code of conduct and ethics
States the standard of behaviour required of everyone who acts in the organisation’s name.
States the standard of behaviour required of everyone who acts in the organisation’s name.
Write it in the second person and in specifics, not in values-language: honesty in client communication, competence and the duty to decline work beyond it, independence and objectivity, confidentiality, dealings with regulators and organs of state, use of the organisation’s assets and systems, outside interests and public comment, and responsible corporate citizenship. Attach an annual written acknowledgement, a reporting route for breaches, and the consequence of a breach expressed as a disciplinary matter.
A code that only recites values cannot be enforced, because no-one can point to the rule that was broken. And where a member of staff is subject to a professional code as well — an attorney, an accountant, an engineer — say expressly that the stricter standard applies, or the two codes will be argued against each other at exactly the wrong moment.
The law it sits under
What governs this instrument.
A code of conduct is enforceable through the disciplinary code, and only through it. Schedule 8 to the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 requires that the rule exist and that the employee be aware of it, which makes the communication record — not the code itself — the document that decides a dismissal. For directors, sections 75 and 76 of the Companies Act set the statutory floor the code sits on top of.
Related pages, tools and documents
Where this instrument sits in the wider set, and the engagement that produces it.
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