an article from a forum on compliance and ethics

A lot of the postings that I've read here seem to come down to: compliance and ethics would be a lot easier to keep in place if compliance officers got the respect and authority they need from upper management. I agree, however, an awful lot of the North American workforce do not have such a thing as a compliance officer, or an HR manager, or an IT department, The day of the management generalist is very much still with us with companies and organisations that simply don't have the capacity to hire beyond one or two professional directors.
The other point I often hear is that training and/or leading by example is the best way to teach compliance to employees. To a degree I will say yes, but honestly, culture will inform new employees attitudes far more. Behaviour learned over coffee breaks is going to be far more influential than anything one can come up with in a training package. If a small organisation has a couple of 20 year employees who gossip about everyone over coffee, it will spread as would the veteran employee who gets away with sneaking in late and out early on a regular basis.

I know of one leader who found himself in a situation where compliance to legislation was an absolute must. He oversaw the delivery of social services, on the taxpayers' dime, including addictions counseling, at risk youth counseling, family counseling, anger management workshops. and more. Of course this employees had to guarantee confidentiality, and have appropriate credentials for the work as well as provide timely, confidential and accurate reports to him. When he started, very little of that was in play.He undertook a three pronged approach 1) some people had to go, the ones who were in violation of all 3 of those criteria, they were well ensconced in their positions and would not accept any 'feedback' their damage to the organisation had to be considered as well, 2) he had to be sure and model that ethical behavior, especially confidentiality to all of his employees every day 3) he found that he could show the employees that there was value in following regulatory directives and complying with ethical standards, not just in terms of job security but that their clients would value them. It took several weeks to get this new mindset working but for a couple of years it worked, drastically improving the organisations public image. Unfortunately, a new and greedy board of directors learned about directors liability insurance. Soon nepotism, conflict of interest and board interference ruled. When this manager tried to call them out, they created an excuse to get rid of him. No ethics among the lot. Interesting that his teaching about the value and the modeling only worked as far as his level of influence held sway.