More than half (55%) of employees and leaders from companies around the world believe that standards of corporate integrity have stayed the same or worsened over the last 18 months, according to the 2022 EY Global Integrity Report.
While a record (97%) respondents to the survey agree that integrity is important within their organizations, 41% say that the COVID-19 pandemic is making it more difficult to act with integrity in business dealings, according to Business-Review.eu.
The survey, which canvassed the views of more than 4,700 employees, managers and board directors from 54 countries and territories, found that leaders are struggling to create and communicate a strong and effective culture of integrity within their business.
Andrew Gordon, EY Global Forensic & Integrity Services Leader, says: “The COVID-19 pandemic has had a serious impact on integrity standards for companies around the world. The change to ways of working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has created a heightened risk of fraud and unethical behavior. Hybrid working makes it difficult to undertake effective compliance monitoring, and fraud risk factors typically increase at a time of crisis because companies and individuals face more financial pressures.”
In the last 12 months, there has been greater investment in integrity and compliance initiatives: 53% of responding organizations have a code of conduct in place, compared with 47% 18 months ago. There is also an uptick in training programs, with 46% of businesses providing regular training on relevant legal regulatory or professional requirements, compared with 38% in 2020.
However, the survey highlights that this increased investment is not being communicated effectively and senior management is often over-confident in the effectiveness of its corporate integrity programs. For example, while 60% of board member respondents say that their organization has communicated the importance of behaving with integrity frequently in the last 18 months, less than a third (30%) of employee respondents remember seeing any communications on the topic.
There is also a gap between the views of board members and employees in relation to awareness of policies on working from home (80% vs. 51%) and awareness of training on data privacy regulations (52% vs. 35%).
Along with a lack of awareness, there appears to be limited understanding of the critical importance of integrity, beyond compliance with rules and regulations. Only a third (33%) of respondents say that an important characteristic of integrity is behaving with ethical standards.
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