Ethics audit is an external, independent assessment of a company’s ethics management system. The procedure is necessary for companies that want to build the most conscientious and sustainable business, avoid risks associated with unethical or illegal behavior, and systematically test the quality of their existing ethics management system. Ethical audits are conducted in areas that fully encompass the ethics management system of the company.
Depending on the ultimate goal, auditors can rely on different stages of the audit. If a manager is just starting to establish an ethics management system or is not sure about the existing system, it is necessary to start with a preliminary audit. The latter consists of the fact that the expert gets acquainted with the ethics management system in the company for a few days (Ferrell, 2019). Then a conclusion about the company’s readiness for a full audit is made, or recommendations on the implementation of the missing elements of the management system are formulated.
If it is necessary to confirm a high level of development of the ethics management system and identify further areas for its development, management resorts to a full audit. It implies that there is a team of experts, each of which works in a separate area. It is customary to distinguish 12 main positions in the course of the audit, which include: The areas include:
- Ethical leadership.
- Ethical corporate documents.
- Management of the ethics function.
- Ethical training of employees.
- Customer relations.
- Employee relations.
- Relations with suppliers.
- Relations with society.
- Internal communications.
- Controlling mechanisms.
- Hotline and internal investigations.
- Awareness and accessibility (Fountain, 2017).
In a full audit, employees move smoothly from one step to the next. To begin with, they study all the necessary documents and materials, then conduct interviews and surveys, and assess the company’s management system according to 250 indicators (Ferrell, 2019). In the last stage, they make detailed recommendations for further development of the ethics management system in the company. Ethical standards of auditing include adherence to several principles. Morally important is the principle of honesty, which characterizes open and truthful actions in all business and professional relationships. Auditors should not deal with reports, information, and data that inherently contain incorrect or misleading messages and statements. The same applies to carelessly prepared data with omissions or misrepresentations. An auditor cannot be considered to have violated ethical standards by issuing a modified report (opinion).
After the audit, the company usually receives three documents, which include an audit report, a conclusion about the procedure, and a certificate. The latter is intended for public use and is usually posted on the organization’s website, while the first two documents are kept directly in the office and are not made available for public scrutiny. The audit report includes a detailed description of the activities carried out and information collected, a quality analysis of all elements of the ethics management system, as well as recommendations for each area (Fountain, 2017). The conclusion formulates an output about the conducted research and quality assessment of the ethics management system.
Thus, regardless of the type of audit and the number of specialists involved, this procedure allows the manager to improve the quality of the company and increase its performance. Competent work with the conclusion and the audit report will help the administration to avoid large-scale mistakes. Audit, built on the analysis of all the necessary indicators, will allow the organization to become attractive to employees, customers, and business partners.
References
Ferrell, O. C. (2019). Business ethics: ethical decision making and cases. (12th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Fountain, L. (2017). Ethics and the internal auditor’s political dilemma : tools and techniques to evaluate a company’s ethical culture. CRC Press.