Maintaining code of ethics in organizations is important; but why? ISACA encourages professionals to follow the code of ethics. In fact, following professional code of ethics is a mandatory requirement for every CISA member and candidate. They need to be aware of the ISACA code of professional ethics and practically follow it. Similarly, many other international bodies encourage code of ethics for professionals in organizations.
As the business world has started acknowledging the need to maintain code of ethics in organizations, let’s have a look at the importance of maintaining one. During the induction process of every organization, new employees are taken through the organization code of ethics. The same might be handed to you as well in your welcome kit. But how long do you follow it or remember it. Code of ethics are built in order to maintain decorum in an organization and to ensure that every employee is treated equally when it comes to ethics and professional conduct. Organizations should remind employee how crucial is it to follow the code of ethics at regular intervals.
Purpose of Code of Ethics
A code of ethics helps an organization to maintain a common framework based on which all decisions in an organization are made. Such code of ethics should be communicated to both internal and external stakeholders of an organization to maintain a standard decorum of decision making, interaction and work culture. Code of ethics protects a company’s reputation and helps to protect legal boundaries during situations when anyone breaches the ethics.
Scope of Code of Ethics
Code of ethics finds its scope in every industry from corporate level to department level. In corporate level, code of ethics includes terms and principles in a general format. It covers security issues including terms related to IT, HR and Payroll. These guidelines are to be maintained by every employee working in an organization. Misbehavior and harassment issues too are filed in a corporate level. On the other hand, in department level, code of ethics is more specific. These are more confined to work process and hierarchy within the department.
Process of Code of Ethics
You know the purpose of creating a code of ethics and its scope in an organization but what is the process of creating one. How do you create a code of ethics? Moral values should be given more weightage or work process. All these questions need to be answered before creating one in practical. There should be a balance between moral values and work process. Here, moral values include the ethics that needs to be in place in order to ensure employee’s respect as a human and an employee of an organization. While work process includes security issues that one should abide by while working on the organization. Besides, code of ethics might be different based on ethical standards of regions.
General Structure of Code of Ethics
- Competence
- Confidentiality
- Integrity
- Credibility
Every employee in an organization should maintain professional decorum while working in an organization. They should abide by the rules and technical standards while working and should maintain professional limitations in communicating and exercising work processes. They should ensure that data related to the organization doesn’t go outside.
Every confidential information should be kept so, breach of which might lead to legal procedures. Employees should be eager to mitigate conflicts and should maintain a clear communication with team members, juniors and reporting seniors. And finally, they should be able to communicate fairly and objectively. All these are necessary in order to ensure security and maintain respect and healthy communication in organizations. ISACA forwards a code of professional ethics for candidates taking up the CISA exam. To know more about ISACA Code of Professional ethics, click here.
