We confess: We love reading reports. Big, bulky reports with charts and graphs and numbers and data. We absolutely love it. There are, unfortunately, a couple of downsides to this. For one, we’re having trouble finding book clubs who want to read compliance reports with us. We’re also having trouble finding dates, but that’s a topic for another day.The other problem with our report obsession is we sometimes find information in these things that’s frankly a little frightening. For instance, we were just browsing through the EMEIA Fraud Survey results and, well, things don’t look so hot.
We learned from this report that half of all respondents feel compliance issues are widespread in their country and 27% report bribery is “common” in their business sector. Call us old fashioned, but the only things that should be considered common in the business sector are uncomfortable clothing and socially awkward IT departments.
Since it was Saturday night and we were alone (again), we continued to read and learned there are tons of people out there who withhold information about misconduct concerns. And did you know a third of the executives in the UAE have quit a job because of the unethical shenanigans happening in their own companies? Yup. There it was in black and white next to the tub of ice cream we single-handedly gorged on.
But don’t just take our word for it, grab your own tub of ice cream and read the full article here.
Now you might be wondering if there was any good news in the report. First, let us say that we’ve always appreciated your optimism. Second, yes, there is some good news in the report. Almost half of the UAE respondents felt regulatory activity had a positive effect on their company’s ethical standards.
But just when it seems happy days are here again, we found a statistic that really caught our eye: not-quite-10% of all respondents are aware there are hotlines for reporting compliance and ethical violations. What else don’t people know? Other than we’re free next weekend if anyone would like to grab a drink?
So, Friday night, while we were renaming our cats, we had an idea: what would happen to surveys and reports like this if people just started talking about compliance? If people were aware of the ins and outs? The differences between bribes and acceptable gifts?
You might be wondering how to get this sort of conversation started within your organization. Spoiler alert: It’s not as simple as marching into your offices and announcing, “Let’s talk about corruption!” We’ve found that’s just as effective as marching in and asking, “Who wants to talk religion?”
Instead, we suggest you rely on an external resource. With a sense of humor. And a wide range of topics and information.
We suggest you rely on “Bernie”.
“Bernie” (and, by extension, us) knows how to engage people in the dry subjects of legislation and compliance. We do it by eschewing the not-so-exciting formats of the past and relying on humour and storytelling to get the ball rolling. And we supply additional information to get people talking and help you develop and maintain an ethical culture in your firm.
Give us a shout and let us know if you have any questions or if there’s anything else we can do to help you get the conversation started. A recent survey found that 100% of our staff fully believe you’ll be happy you did.