Services
Working together to build trust. Both within your organization and in relation to customers, stakeholders and society. With an open and honest attitude and a recognized method.
METHOD
It starts with prevention
Within integrity and compliance management, the model of prevention, detection and response is often used. These three facets are all essential, but investments in prevention offer the highest returns. For example, by using the scientific soft controls model, weaknesses in the integrity culture can be detected in a timely manner. And through integrity risk analysis, critical risks are quickly revealed. By acting proactively, incidents, reduced performance and reputational damage can be prevented.
POINTS OF DEPARTURE
Value-based
Integrity means doing the right thing, even when no one is looking, and even when it requires sacrifice. Companies and organizations that have a definition of what is right based on clear values are more likely to have a culture of trust.
Realistic
Managers and consultants often overestimate the impact of integrity and culture change programs. Integrity cannot be strengthened with a few training sessions. Culture and behaviour are much more complex and require a realistic approach.
Factual & measurable
Integrity is not only a moral issue but also a dimension with impact on the functioning of the organization. Integrity must be made transparent in figures and indicators, as a basis for strategy and action.
SOLUTIONS
On the range between integrity and compliance
Sometimes, signals may come to management that the culture of integrity within an office, workplace or department is seriously weakened. For example, signs of gossiping, bullying, discrimination, and harassment. In such cases, it is not always clear what or who the cause is, but management feels the need to intervene. With a confidential signals investigation, the consultant identifies the situation and provides management with insight and advice on remedial action to be taken.
Clarity, openness to discuss dilemma’s, role modelling. These are some of the eight dimensions that are part of integrity culture according to the soft controls model. This scientific model is used to measure culture across the entire organisation. Based on the measurement, the consultant offers targeted advice in a report. A connection can also be sought with the organisation’s existing management dashboards.
More about the soft controls model
Too few integrity reports? It can happen when there are perceived barriers within an organisation to reporting. Such barriers may be practical, cultural, or psychological. The consultant conducts a barrier analysis of the root causes and provides concrete advice to remove the thresholds.
More about barrier analysis
Clear agreements on behaviour are needed. Partly for legal reasons. But more importantly, they form the basis for a strong integrity culture. A good code of conduct gives employees guidelines for their daily work and ensures that they can call each other to account for incorrect behaviour. A code of conduct should therefore be tailored to the dilemmas employees face on a daily basis. The link to the organisation’s values and mission is also very important, and the code of conduct should be regularly updated, for instance as a result of changes in the organisation.
Integrity risk management is a powerful tool. But it can quickly become a ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ exercise rather than a basis for sound decision-making. There must be an incentive from the operational line to deal with such risks. Through workshops, they can become familiar with the method and jointly identify risks related to relevant customer groups, operational activities and products. Follow-up sessions can focus on mitigating measures and preparing an action plan. The consultant can facilitate the entire process, including using the SIRA methodology of the Nederlandsche Bank for compliance with the Dutch AML Act (Wwft).
Read more about integrity risk management
Within any organisation, it is necessary for employees and stakeholders to be able to report integrity violations. This requires a controlled work process in which reports are followed up adequately. It is also necessary that the possibility of reporting is well known to employees and that there are no barriers to reporting. The consultant can set up (part of) the reporting procedure.
Integrity and compliance management finds its basis in good policy. It describes the framework of how an organisation deals with integrity and compliance. This can include, for example, an Integrity Policy, Whistleblower Procedure, Anti-corruption Policy, and Anti-Money Laundering Policy. The consultant can provide support in setting up or validating organisational policies with regard to integrity and compliance management. This can take into account external requirements such as (new) laws and regulations.