Page 68 - The Ethics of ASEAN

The Ethics of ASEAN

Changing ethics is not easy and Sharmini described the
challenges in getting leaders to understand and adopt ethical
values at BP. Some business leaders do not understand the
expectation that they must lead in ethics beyond regulations
and compliance. She gave the example of zero tolerance for
bullying and sexual misconduct as an ethical challenge in
ensuring a safe environment for female employees.
Sharmini described how BP is making its ethical transition
with five culture change programmes: 1) Values made easy, 2)
Be clear for what you stand for, 3) Lead by example, 4) Trust
me, show me, prove to me, and 5) Make integrity a habit. BP
implements this programme through annual training for all
employees, issuing accessible guidelines and codes of conduct.
The leadership programmes encourage personal integrity,
teach how to build trust and they provide guidelines for ethical
transparency.
In a business, building an ethical culture has to show how it
links to the business. Sharmini discusses ways in which ethics
can pay off and gave the example of how BP won a bid for a
large project thanks to trust in the company’s transparency and
integrity.

Shree Mogan: Becoming an Ethics Advocate is
a big change for HR

Shree Mogan was previously involved in various non-profit
initiatives including a directorial role at SYINC, a youth non-
profit organisation in 2009, as well as the UNLEASH programme
in Singapore, a global innovation hub aimed at fulfilling the UN
SDGs. She worked in HR at Barclays, J.P. Morgan and GoJek
before her current position as Chief Human Resource Officer at
FLOW.
While Sharmini Lohadhasan described the importance
of leaders in exemplifying and managing ethics, Shree Mogan
takes up the question of whether the Human Resource function
really has an ethical role in companies.
Shree makes the case that HR professionals should not
only be the executors of ethics policies and regulations, but
should be active leaders and advocates of ethics. For this
Figure 4: C. Rajashree Mogan
is Chief Human Resource to happen in ASEAN companies and in the mindset of HR
Officer at FLOW with professionals, the HR function needs to evolve beyond its role
experience in multinationals as people administrator and business support. In its new ethical
and ASEAN unicorns, as well
as social enteprises. role, HR can help businesses identify social commitments and
contributions to society beyond just the company employees.

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