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FCPA Compliance Report

FCPA Compliance Report – Erica Salmon Byrne on 2024 World’s Most Ethical Companies Awards

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this special Thursday edition of the FCPA Compliance Report, Tom welcomes Erica Salmon Byrne, Chief Strategy Officer and Executive Chair, at Ethisphere to discuss the announcement of the 2024 World’s Most Ethical Companies Designations and the new Ethics Premium.

Erica Salmon Byrne is a renowned figure in ethical business practices, recognized for her significant role in the annual announcement and recognition of the world’s most ethical companies. Byrne views this list as a crucial acknowledgment of companies globally that are making a positive impact, with representation across 20 countries and 44 industries. Her experiences in leading changes to the program’s methodology, such as introducing a third-party management category and a heightened focus on governance and culture, have shaped her perspective on the continuous evolution and improvement of the evaluation process. She sees the list as a valuable tool for companies to demonstrate their commitment to ethics and compliance and as a source of inspiration for others in the compliance community to strive for ethical excellence.

Key Highlights:

  • Global Recognition for Ethical Business Practices
  • Enhanced Scoring System Emphasizing Governance and Culture
  • Global Representation of Ethical Industry Leaders
  • Ethics Quotient Evaluation for Recognized Companies

Resources:

Erica Salmon Byrne on LinkedIn

Ethisphere

World’s Most Ethical Companies for 2024

Tom Fox

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YouTube

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LinkedIn

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FCPA Compliance Report

Erica Salmon Byrne on 2023 World’s Most Ethical Companies

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest running podcast in compliance. In this episode, I am joined Erica Salmon Byrne, President of Ethisphere, to discuss the World’s Most Ethical Companies awards. Byrne explains the evaluation process and what types of areas are investigated. She highlights how the list has fluctuated over the years and the importance of a company’s people practices. Through the cross functional scorecard, companies can measure their performance compared to a global index.

We discuss the importance of “ethics premium” and the scorecard process. To measure the value of a company’s people practices, the survey demonstrated an outperformance of 13.6% against a comparable global index. Byrne also gives information to listeners on where to find more information on the world’s most ethical companies. Tune into this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report and learn more about the World’s Most Ethical Companies. 

Key Highlights

  1. What is the World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition?
  2. How long has Ethisphere recognized the World’s Most Ethical Companies?
  3. What are criteria Ethisphere considers during the evaluation process? What is the evaluation framework.
  4. What are the benefits of applying for the World’s Most Ethical Companies?
  5. Even if a company is not selected, what are some of the benefits?
  6. What is the Ethics Premium and what was the 2023 Ethics Premium? 

 Notable Quotes

“What does the recognition itself mean? So, you know, it’s  really interesting, Tom. Because I I’ve asked a lot of honorary companies about that. And I  particularly liked the way 1 company phrased it to me when I was talking to them last week, and they said, look, there are lots and lots of times that companies get recognized for messing up.”

“We’re looking at the ways you are thinking about, your impact on the communities in which you operate. We are looking at your ethics and compliance program initiatives. We’re looking at the way you are governing your programs both at the board level and at the C suite level. We’re looking at your leadership and your reputation.”

“I’ve had multiple compliance officers tell me that their best self-assessment work is just reading the red line of our survey every year and asking themselves would I answer this new question from Ethisphere?”

“Are there questions on this survey I can’t answer without going and speaking to somebody else? Do I know who that person is? And if not, why not? Because all of those relationships are critical relationships to operating your program well.”

 Episode Links

World’s Most Ethical Companies

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FCPA Compliance Report

Erica Salmon Byrne – Information is a Gift

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this episode, I am joined by Erica Salmon Byrne, the CEO of Ethisphere, to discuss the company’s recent “2023 Ethical Culture Report: Lessons from the Pandemic.” Erica shares that the report found a significant uptick in reported cases of bullying, likely due to masking feelings with the anonymity of a keyboard. While an employee’s direct manager is most often the first avenue for employees to report concerns, other forms of reporting weren’t utilized due to a fear of retaliation. Erica suggests that companies need to make it easy for employees to communicate broader ethical issues, as doing so will result in a tripling of employee faith in the system.

Key Highlights:

·      The Impact of the Pandemic on Bullying Incidents

·      Reasons Younger Employees Don’t Speak Up When Witnessing Unethical Behavior

·      Creating a Speak Up Culture in the Workplace

·      Improving Communication Between Employees and Managers

·      Reporting Issues to Managers: Examining the Results of a Recent Report

·      The Importance of Managerial Leadership in Ethical Decision Making

·      The Importance of Making it Easier for Employees to Report Issues

Notable Quotes

1.    “Employee willingness to raise their hand stayed pretty steady.”

2.    “It’s a lot easier to be a jerk behind a keyboard than to be a jerk to somebody’s face.”

3.    “The reason we have non-retaliation language in our code is that information is a gift.”

4.    “Think of the information as a gift, practice thinking of the information as a gift, and then your responsibility as the manager is to listen and follow up.”

Resources:

Ethisphere Resources

·      Ethisphere

·      2023 Ethical Culture Report

Connect with Erica Salmon Byrne

●      LinkedIn

Connect with Tom Fox

●      LinkedIn

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FCPA Compliance Report

2023 World’s Most Ethical Companies Applications Open

In this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I am joined by Erica Salmon Byrne, President of Ethisphere and Chair of the Ethisphere’s Business Ethics Leadership Alliance. Some of the highlights include:

1.     Ethisphere announces the 2023 World’s Most Ethical application process.

2.     What is the application process?

3.     What is the Ethics Quotient and why is it such a useful measure?

4.     What are the 5 categories of evaluation?

5.     Why is going through the application process itself so useful?

6.     How can a company use it as a benchmarking exercise?

7.     How does the Ethisphere “The Sphere” interact with the application process?

8.     What are the 6 archetypes of value creation?

Resources

Erica Salmon Byrne

Ethisphere

World’s Most Ethical Companies application process, here

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Innovation in Compliance

Ethisphere’s The Sphere with Erica Salmon Byrne

 

Erica Salmon Byrne is the President of Ethisphere and Chair of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance. Ethisphere is a company that believes that companies that focus on building a sustainable business will outperform their peers that do not. Tom Fox welcomes her to this week’s show to talk about Ethisphere’s innovative new service called The Sphere. 

 

 

What is The Sphere?

Tom asks Erica to describe The Sphere and why she is so excited about the launch. For more than 15 years, Ethisphere has been collecting data on the programmatic practices of the world’s most ethical companies through their questionnaire, called the Ethics Quotient, Erica explains. They realized a demand for solid benchmarking within the compliance space, and decided to democratize their data access. This was the birth of The Sphere – a subscription-based service that allows you to select the topic you are interested in getting data on and gain access to a multitude of resources. 

 

Peer Data: A Powerful Tool

Tom asks Erica what makes peer data so important and powerful for a CCO. Whenever you’re going to make a business proposition, she replies, the first question you will be asked is ‘What are other people doing?’. Businesses want to compare their practices and progress to their peers’. This is to avoid being dubbed “a weak antelope” – you don’t necessarily want to be ahead of the pack, you just want to ensure that you have a functioning practice compared to your competitors. So how to determine you’re in that comfortable middle position of the pack? The answer is data analysis. When you present the relevant data to your CFO or compliance team, they tend to believe in your leadership and vision more.

 

Resources

Erica Salmon Byrne | LinkedIn | Twitter

Ethisphere | The Sphere

 

Categories
FCPA Compliance Report

Erica Salmon Byrne on The Sphere


In this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report, I welcome back Ethisphere President and Chair of the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance, Erica Salmon Byrne, who talks about an exciting new innovation and service offering called The Sphere. Through this offering and for the first time, Compliance  Professionals can easily benchmark against the practices of companies with exceptional programs to identify gaps, benchmark and access a wealth of insights and resources to guide improvements.
Key areas we discuss on this podcast are:

  •  What is The Sphere?
  •  The data and resources are built into it.
  • The ease of access.
  • Where can listeners find this podcast?

Resources
Ethisphere
The Sphere
Erica Salmon Byrne on LinkedIn