3 Rules for Rules
Recently, I came upon a work of art titled Rule at the Whitney Museum in New York City. The work by David L. Johnson shows a collection of plaques from privately owned public spaces around New York City. Developers create these park-like spaces for public use in exchange for rights to build taller buildings.
I couldn’t help but note several parallels between this artwork and a good ethics & compliance program.
Rules Must be Relevant
Some of those spaces are indoors, some outdoors. Some have trees and benches, others chairs and tables. The rules posted are specific to the site and wouldn’t make sense if they prohibit lying on benches if the site had none.
Corporate policies and procedures must also be relevant and applicable, which is easier said than done. Large, complex organizations often need to create policies that apply to all employees, but if a business unit or function cannot comply with the requirements, they would simply be ignored. The bigger risk is that the ethics & compliance function would also be ignored if it is perceived as inapplicable.
Rules Must be Accessible
The public space rules are required to be posted prominently to be enforceable. Otherwise, people would not find them even if they wanted to comply.
If policies are difficult to find or understand, employees would also have a hard time complying. While it is the responsibility of employees to adhere to policies, it’s the responsibility of Compliance to make them accessible. How they are written, what translations are available, where they are posted and how they are communicated all matter.
Rules Should Serve the People
The artwork is a commentary on whether the rules themselves are just. The artist questions whether the rules primarily serve the interests of private owners and the government rather than the general public whose rights to use the spaces are restricted.
Corporate compliance programs can focus too much on regulators and lose sight of who the regulations are meant to serve. Policies written primarily to appease regulators are missing the purpose of laws in the first place, which is to create an orderly, just and safe society for the people who live in it. Ethics and compliance professionals should remember that the goal of policies is to foster a lawful and ethical culture that benefits employees, clients, partners and suppliers alike, not to satisfy regulators for their own sakes.
Takeaways
If you want your policy to work in practice:
Make sure content is relevant to your stakeholders.
Think sure your policy is easily accessible.
Consider how the policy serves the people in your organization.
Principle Compliance uses change management principles to build ethics & compliance programs that put policy into practice.