MBA 402 Code of Conduct Sample Assignment

The Code of Conduct is based on the below mentioned principles that define how we should conduct ourselves. These are:

DISCRIMINATION; HARASSMENT; BULLYING

The company will not tolerate harassment, discrimination or bullying in its workplace.

Every person or employee should be approached with respect and dignity. No employee should be subject to any discrimination in employment regarding candidate selection, wage or compensation payment, promotion, training and supervision, termination, retirement or redundancy based on characteristics like age, sex, sexual preference, religion, race, disability, nationality, social or ethnic group, political opinion.

Discrimination involves treating people differently due to race race, colour, ethnic origin, religion, age, gender, disability, sexual preference, gender identity, pregnancy, family responsibilities or any other attribute specified by anti-discrimination legislation.

The following behaviours are unacceptable:

• Use of derogatory or abusive dialect or comments on someone;
• groundless criticism or complaints;
• Intentionally exclude an employee from workplace or job related performance or discussion without any justification;
• denying access to data resources, information, supervision, consultation to a particular employee or a group of employee;
• Spreading false information or malicious rumors.

Employee need to understand that harassment or violence of any sort is forbidden. No employee should be liable to any physical, sexual, mental or verbal harassment or abuse.

Harassment involves subjecting people to unwelcome or uninvited attention that intimidates or offends them.

Harassment can incorporate behavior such as:

• Language and visual of sexual, sexist, homophobic or racist nature;
• Unacceptable physical contact, such as intentional touching, patting or pinching
• threaten or intimidate someone because of their race, religion, sex, disability or any other grounds of discrimination;
• sending explicit or sexually suggestive emails or text messages;
• displaying racially offensive or pornographic posters or screensavers;
• asking disturbing questions about someone's personal life, including his or her sex life.

Bullying

Bullying is any form of unwelcome or uninvited behavior that intimidates humiliates or offends an employee and generally takes the form of one or more of these overtly aggressive behaviours:

• Abusive, insulting or offensive language
• Criticism delivered by yelling and screaming
• Inappropriate comments about a person’s appearance, lifestyle or family
• Teasing or regularly making someone the brunt of practical and oral jokes
• Interfering with personal effects and or work equipment
• Overloading a person with work and setting unreasonable or difficult time lines

EXPLOITATION

Exploitation of an employee by the employer or any of the employee or authority in higher position will not be tolerated.

Exploitation is defined as the act of unfair treatment of an employee or worker by the employer or leader in authority so as to get benefitted from their efforts or labour.

• Employer shall not expect an employee to work more than the normal and overtime hours permitted by the law of the country. The regular work shall not surpass 48 hours. Employer shall permit workers at least thirty-minutes of meal break in the middle of the working hours each day and 24 consecutive hours of rest or a day off in each week.
• All overtime work must be given on the consent of employees. Employer shall not ask for overtime on frequent basis and the payment rate for the overtime work must be more than the normal rate. The sum of regular and overtime hours should not surpass 60 hours except in some exceptional cases
• Employer should not pay less than minimum or the appropriate wage prevalent and must provide fringe benefits to the employees as stated by the law or employee contract.
• Every employee has a right to claim remuneration for a normal working week if that is not enough to meet their basic needs.
• Employer must ensure there is no use of any kind of forced labour, such as indentured labour or any other types of forced labour, and young children at the age of 18 or under the age of 18.

CORRUPTION; DISHONEST; FRAUDULENT BEHAVIOUR

Any act pertaining to corruption or dishonest and fraudulent behavior by any of the employee or leader is unethical and unacceptable.

Fraudulent behavior can be defined as dishonest act that involves means of gaining an illegal advantage for self benefit or benefit of any unauthorized person or party.

Corruption refers to the misuse of the authority or position by any of the employee or leader by acting against the interest of the company for their own benefit or for the benefit of third party.

Examples of fraud and corruption include:

• offering a potential client a bribe or a kickback to get illegal advantage over competitors;
• distribution or selling company's private information to outsiders or unauthorized party, including rival companies;
• using AMP's property, funds and services for self benefit or the benefit of unauthorized third party;
• showing fake activation of customer account.

All employees are obliged to act honestly and to diligently follow the process and procedures that have been established to control fraud and corruption.

Employees at all level within the organization should report any weaknesses or loopholes in control that can assist a fraud.

They also have a duty to report any act or incident that may be suspected as a fraudulent or corrupt, as soon as they are aware of these circumstances following the procedures in AMP's whistleblower policy.

WHISTLEBLOWER PROTECTION

This protection supports the disclosure by individuals of wrongdoing occurring within the Company so that appropriate action can be undertaken. The Company will treat all information disclosed in a confidential manner (so far as the circumstances permit), conduct a fair and objective investigation and take appropriate remedial steps or notify relevant authorities.

A whistle blower is a person who exposes an information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or wrongdoing within a company.

Examples of whistleblowers include:

• safety or the environment
• acted illegally
• wasted public money
• misused public resources
• falsified records

The corporation act makes it a criminal offence to victimize a whistleblower because of a protected disclosure made by the whistleblower. If a whistleblower suffers any damage because of such victimization, the whistleblower can claim compensation for the damage from the offender according to the Corporations Act of Australia.

A Whistleblower who considers that they are the subject of Victimisation may also seek independent legal advice or contact appropriate authorities including the Director and Human Resources and the Whistleblower may agree to take positive steps to protect the Whistleblower from a breach of confidentiality or victimisation including: granting leave of absence to the Whistleblower or the person who is the subject of the disclosure for the period of the investigation; or making alternative arrangements.

ENFORCEMENT OF CODE OF CONDUCT:

Enforcing a code of conduct is very essential part for maintaining the dignity of any profession and to ensure legal and ethical and corporate practices. It comprises of standard code of practice for examination of violation of code of conduct and taking suitable disciplinary action on those who breach the code.

This Code applies to all personnel who is employed by or works in the AMP.

This Code applies to you whenever you are identified as a representative of AMP. In some circumstances, this will include times when you are outside of your workplace or working hours.

Agents, contractors, consultants and other intermediaries are also expected to know and observe the principles set out in this Code and should be made aware of this Code or the relevant divisional/business unit Code when we engage them to work with us.

Following are the enforcement strategies adopted by AMP:

Communicating the code of conduct:

The user (company employee) can access the code of conduct when required through following company intranet:

• company website
• employee handbook
• noticeboard

Understanding the code of conduct:

In order to make sure that employees fully understand the code of conduct and the company's expectation from them, the employer must seek feedback from the employees. If they are not fully clear on some issues addressed by the code of conduct, provide training on those issues.

Induction training:

Induction training can be defined as an orientation for new employees so that they can adopt their new work environment and a new profession or job role in an organization . It acts as an orientation program where in the new employees have a chance to get familiarize with the company's code of conduct, values, principles and goal. Induction training must include training on issues addressed by the code of conduct such as discrimination, harassment, fraudulent behavior and corruption and training on how to deal with such issues.

Formulation of policies

The formulation of following policies helps the employer to make the employees and the clients understand that they are not only building up their values and commitment but are living up to their values and commitments.

• Anti-discrimination policy
• Anti-bribery and corruption policy
• Conflicts of interest policy
• Whistleblower policy
• Gender diversity policy

Inclusion of code of conduct compliance in employee performance appraisal and reward:

Including the code of conduct compliance in the criteria for employee appraisal and reward will motivate the employee to follow the code of conduct in a positive way and promotes ethical behavior in a workplace.

Disciplinary actions:

The following disciplinary action may be imposed upon any leader and employee found to be in violation of code of conduct following the proper procedures in the disciplinary action policy:

• Counselling
• Verbal warning
• Official written reprimand
• Final written warning
• Performance management meeting
• Suspension or demotion
• Termination of employment

SPEAK UP

You have a responsibility to immediately report any breaches of this Code by a colleague to your immediate supervisor or manager, and you should also report conduct where you are unsure whether a breach of this Code has occurred.

All reports will be kept confidential and no employee will be disadvantaged or prejudiced by reporting in good faith a breach or suspected breach of a law, regulation, or of this Code.

The Corporations Act also gives special protection to disclosures about breaches of that Act, as long as certain conditions are met.

REFERENCES:

Anon,(2018)

Anon, (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.humanrights.gov.au/.../workplace-discrimination-harashment-and-bullyin...

Anon, (2018). [online] Available at https://www.ethics. org > Resources> Ethics & Compliance

Asic.gov.au. (2018). Codes of conduct | ASIC - Australian Securities and Investments Commission. [online] Available at: https://asic.gov.au/for-consumers/codes-of-conduct.

Toolkit.

www.amp.com.au. (2015). Corporate governance policies.[online]Available at: https://corporate.amp.com.au/about-amp/corporate-governance.

www.adelaide.edu.au. (2015).[online] Available at: https://www.adelaide.edu.au/legalandrisk/docs/resources/Whistleblowers_Protection_101.pdf

Childerns, D.(2018). Home –Ethics & Compliance Initiative. [online] Ethics & Compliance Initiative. Available at:https://www.ethics.org.

Fairlabor.org. (2018). Code of Conduct / Fair Labor Association. [online] Available at: https://www.fairlabor.org/our-work/code-of-conduct.

Farrar.John.Corporate Corporate Governance (Theories, principles and practice), 3^rd edition, South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, 2008

Group.D.(2018).corporate governance. [online] Wesfarmers.com.au. Available at: https://www.wesfarmers.com.au/who-we-are/corporate-goveranance.

1. Bosch (ed.), Corporate Practices and Conduct, 3^rd edn, FT Pitman Publishing, Melbourne, 1999.

Hr.uwa.edu.au.(2018). Human Resources: Human Resources: The University of Western Australia. [online] Available at: http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au.

M.Guy, Ethical Decision making in Everyday Work Situations, Quorum Books, New York, 1990

Stockland.com.au.(2018).Corporate Governance.

Usc.edu.au. (2018). Staff Code of Conduct – Governing Policy. [online] Available at: https://www.usc.edu.au/explore/ policies-and-procedures/staff-code-of-coduct-governing-policy.

Workplaceinfo.com.au. ( 2018). News & Info for Australian HR/IR Professionals/ Workplace Info. [online] Available at: http://workplaceinfo.com.au/home.

www.Work.chorn.com.(2018).Code of Conduct in a workplace.[online]Available at: https://work.chorn.com/code-conduct-workplace-6237.html.