Business ethics concentrate on the moral or ethical problems that can arise inside a business environment. Often when we’re at work, it’s easy to see right from wrong (e.g., stealing from the company or providing staff with unsafe working conditions). However, sometimes, business ethics exist inside a grey area, and that’s when things can become tricky. This eBook explains the importance of nurturing a code of ethics in the workplace, as ethics often exist often inside this grey area, responding and resonating with the changing standards and expectations of the organisation at large. Inside, we also explore where ethics meets compliance and the characteristics of an ethical workplace put into practice.
Learning points:
The importance of setting an ethical tone from the top
Diversity and inclusion are important topics for businesses to take into account, no matter their size or sector. Apart from simply being the right thing to do, we know by now that companies with strong cultures of diversity and inclusion are more likely to be innovative, have high-performing, well-motivated teams, and yield higher financial returns. Throughout this eBook, we take a detailed look at what equality and diversity really means, the ways these principles benefit your organisations, and how to recognise a successful culture of equality and diversity. The eBook also asks business leaders to consider difficult questions when it comes to their own equality and diversity processes and habits and suggests practical ways for organisations to improve in this area.
Learning points:
A detailed look at what diversity and inclusion mean
Why diversity and inclusion are important for businesses
Characteristics of companies with strong equality and diversity principles
Questions to assess your own diversity and inclusion culture
Ways to improve your own diversity and inclusion culture
It’s been a tricky time for organisations across all industries recently. Navigating the ever-changing economic landscape as it’s carved out by continued regulatory change, economic upheaval, and the covid-19 pandemic hasn’t been easy, and those working in the field of compliance look set to face ever more challenges and emerging risks as time goes on.
Our eBook examines some of the top challenges facing compliance professionals now and in the near future, offering practical advice and top tips to help you manage these issues more effectively.
Topics included:
Managing your workplace post covid-19
Best practices for cybersecurity (home, office, and hybrid workers)
Without embracing some level of risk, companies actually put themselves at greater risk of failure.
Risk-taking is key to any company’s success. A recent survey found that companies that understood and embraced the risks of the COVID-19 crisis early on fared much better than those that refused to acknowledge the new reality and continued with their pre-COVID plans. Differences in how they perceived risk had dramatic effects on how they coped with change.
For many companies, taking risks is synonymous with innovating and responding to change. Without embracing some level of risk, companies actually put themselves at greater risk of failure. The challenge is understanding which risks are worth taking, and how to mitigate those which are unavoidable.
This is why it’s so important to have a risk management system in place. Risk management is the process of identifying, assessing and controlling threats to a business. Potential risks facing a company could include, for example, security breaches, internal problems with employees or operating systems, market or regulatory changes, natural disasters, and much more. A good risk management system will consider a wide variety of possible scenarios and prioritise the ones most likely to actually happen. It will also take into account a holistic vision of the company and its goals. Then, it can devise strategies to avoid or minimise the potential risks.
VinciWorks’ new Introduction to Risk Management course explores some of the basic tools that most risk managers use, including designing a risk matrix and composing a risk register. These will help you understand the types of considerations that they use to make decisions and to ensure that a business is prepared for future scenarios.
Allies use their power, voice and privilege to act in solidarity with individuals from marginalised or minority groups to tackle inappropriate behaviour and bring down systems of oppression.
VinciWorks and Skill Boosters recently hosted an interactive webinar where they were joined by business psychologist and diversity expert Binna Kandola OBE, founder of business-psychology consultancy Pearn Kandola, as well as psychologist Ashley Williams and Skill Boosters’ Head of Content Ros Fordyce. They looked at real-life scenarios and explored what makes an effective ally. Using short video scenarios, we polled the audience on how they would best handle a given situation and share insights from leading D&I experts.
The diversity and inclusion webinar covers:
Why is allyship important?
The different minority and marginalised groups to whom we can be allies
What it means to be an effective and inclusive ally
Actions that allies can take to support people from minority or marginalised groups
The ‘Open The Front Door’ communication framework and how to use it
A brief overview of the new Allyship course by Skill Boosters
Environmental, social and governance issues do not exist in a silo. ESG is about bringing them together under one banner to demonstrate the positive impact our business is having on the world. ESG is much like corporate social responsibility but on a vastly larger and more measurable scale. Companies that are at the forefront of talking about their ESG scores are generating more attention from across the business spectrum, and investors are actively looking for high ESG-scoring companies.
VinciWorks Free ESG Policy Template
VinciWorks has released a free policy template for businesses to download and use in order to inform their staff on everything ESG related they should know. This includes information on reporting, disclosures, business practices, policies, procedures, investments, board activities, stakeholder engagement, and investor relations.
Which Types of Companies and Businesses Should Download this ESG Policy Template
Recently, ESG has gained more attention worldwide and the SEC as well as other jurisdictions around the world have begun considering or implementing ESG disclosure requirements and penalties for non-compliance. The focus at first is likely to be mainly on disclosures by large reporting companies and ESG funds, but small businesses and privately-held companies should also strongly consider implementing ESG reporting frameworks, as they can also create a significant impact by having an ESG program.
From April 2022, 1,300 of the largest UK firms will be required to report based on the TCFD (Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures) framework. This will include many of the largest companies such as banks and insurers, as well as private businesses with over 500 employees and £500 million in turnover. This means that businesses within the supply chain of these larger firms will have to be prepared to report on some climate-related information to them. Data could include greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint from travel. Even if your own business is not required to undertake mandatory TCFD reporting, if significant customers of yours do have to report based on TCFD, it might be sensible for you to consider TCFD as your own framework. Similarly, if some of your major customers use GRI or the UN SDGs, you may want to align with those rules.
Whether you are a large UK firm or a smaller private firm anywhere in the world, downloading the ESG policy template can help you be prepared and get started on implementing an ESG programme.
Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, the West has imposed significant sanctions on Russia, Belarus, and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchs who fund his war. The conflict has also marked unprecedented international cooperation between Western allies unseen since the days of the Cold War.
The rapidly evolving nature of the situation has made sanctions compliance an increasing challenge for businesses, but also one that is vital to understand. New laws such as the Economic Crime Act in the UK have ramped up sanctions compliance and increased penalties on businesses – any businesses – who get things wrong.
In our latest episode, Director of Learning and Content Nick Henderson looks at what bribery at an international level looks like. Nick shares examples of potential bribery cases and unpacks best practice guidance.
Listen to Episode 3: What are bribery laws like around the world?
You can listen to the latest episode here. Don’t forget to follow us on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts and other popular podcast providers to get updated on future episodes.
What the UK Economic Crime Act and UAE grey listing means for business
There’s been a number of important changes to money laundering in recent weeks which will affect all businesses, but in particular regulated entities. Those are businesses such as law firms and estate agents which are required to adhere to money laundering rules and conduct actions such as due diligence on their customers.
The field of economic sanctions has been growing increasingly complicated in recent years and was thrust into the spotlight when Western nations launched an unprecedented line of sanctions against Russia in February 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine. Many businesses were caught off guard by the sudden changes.
While countries use sanctions as a diplomatic tool to apply economic pressure on threatening regimes, their implementation is often not well understood by the workers in charge of applying them.
VinciWorks’ new, updated suite of sanctions courses provides your staff with the tools to understand and comply with sanctions requirements during volatile times. The suite of courses teaches users how sanctions are applied and how to comply with sanctions requirements. There are two versions of the course: An short, introductory overview for general staff (five minute course), and an in-depth detailed course that provides an in-depth explanation of how to conduct sanctions compliance in the UK, US, EU and UN countries (20 minute course).
