Analyzing Your Corporate Code of Conduct

Corporate code of conduct (CCC) is a system of written corporate rules, policies and procedures that are supposed to define, determine and govern behavioral patterns of your corporate employees – both managers and specialists. Mostly their interactions within your company – vertical and horizontal – and outside it (with your corporate stakeholders). In other words, how they behave towards each other and towards your stakeholders.

Depending on a specific company, CCC may or may not include the corporate dress code (not every organization has one). In today’s increasingly diverse world, CCC often includes the way employees are supposed to express their religious beliefs, political views and the like.

The most obvious requirement for your CCC is that actual behavior of your employees must match it. In other words, your employees must act according to CCC, otherwise it just makes no sense to have one.

CCC is one of the three forces that govern behavioral patterns of your employees – the other two being (1) orders of superiors (upper managers) – either direct or expressed in individual operational plans and (2) actual corporate culture.

Obviously, all these three need to be (a) perfectly coordinated and (b) guide the employee in question towards achieving strategic corporate objectives (through maximizing his/her individual performance and synergy with other employees – horizontal and vertical).

No less obviously, this process and your whole corporate culture management system must be tightly integrated into overall strategic and operational management process.

In order to achieve your corporate objectives, you must satisfy needs and desires of your corporate stakeholders. Which are satisfied by specific decisions and actions of your employees that are supposed to be determined by your CCC. Therefore, your CCC must match these needs and desires.  

Unlike corporate culture, your CCC - by definition – always exists as a written document. Which must be reasonably comprehensive, well-structured, logical and realistic (i.e. must not demand from your employees what they are simply not going to do). And just have to make good old common sense.

For obvious reasons, your CCC must match your KEF (especially social and cultural), your DCI, your corporate mission statement (if you have one), your corporate vision statement and your SRM system (including your corporate communications system).