Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. You've got questions and we've got answers. Welcome to another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast.
Here at Ethisphere, we believe there is no competition in compliance. That's why we're using this show as a platform to answer high level questions about business integrity that have been posed to us by the members of the Business Ethics Leadership alliance, or Bela. Bella is a global ethics and compliance community that provides exclusive access to helpful data, benchmarking events and other resources to advance your ENC program.
It also provides a concierge service by which members can submit questions around best practices, and our internal experts will provide an answer, plus helpful resources with more information.
Many of these questions are particular to a specific company's needs, but many more of them speak to challenges or opportunities that face ENC professionals everywhere. So in this episode, we're going to answer one such question as part of our ongoing mission to make the world a better place by advancing business integrity.
And joining us once again to answer these questions is Bella chair Erica Salmon Byrne. Erica, as always, it's great to have you back in the program.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Well, Bill, thank you so much for having me back. And thank you to the Bella community that just keeps sending in great questions.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Well, this next question is a Champions program question and it reads, what are good ROI data points on having an ambassador or Champions program?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yep.
And Bill, this is another one. We had a wonderful peer to peer conversation at the Global Ethics Summit that unfortunately we were not able to record because we don't record those peer to peer conversations. The ethos at GES is what's learned here leaves and what's said here stays when we do those kinds of sessions. So we were not able to record it, but it was a really good conversation about kind of two aspects of this ROI analysis. First off, what is the ROI of a broader Ambassador program? So sort of what, what should I expect to see if I have one?
And then how do I evaluate my individual ambassadors? So there's sort of the. The program ROI piece of things and then there's the Ambassador KPI piece of things. Right. To continue to, to beat the algorithm, to beat the acronyms to death.
And they're both important. They're both important because if someone is going to take the time to participate in an ambassador program, you want to be able to evaluate their performance in such a way that you can tell their manager or include in a performance evaluation process the contributions they're making through that work. And that is, generally speaking, something that we always recommend to an organization. That is contemplating an ambassador program, because if you don't have a way of measuring their success, then it kind of becomes just an extra job. And, you know, it's it, it, it.
People don't get the benefit out of participating in the program, and then the program will usually, you know, wither and sort of die from there because it becomes a thing that is sort of like we're being responsible for planning the office parties. And that's not what you want your ambassador program to be doing. So, so.
So you definitely want to be thinking about, how do I know that my ambassadors are contributing to the success of the program? And then what does the overall success of the program look like?
So on the overall success of the program side of things, you want to be looking for a couple of things.
Are you getting a better sense of employee questions? Because what you want is you want your ambassadors to be extensions of your ability to understand what your employees need.
Ethics and compliance teams can't be everywhere.
And so, you know, when you, when you roll out an ambassador program, what you want to be hearing is you want to be hearing from the people that you have put in those roles. Hey, you know, this month I got 27 questions on gifts and entertainment. This is the part of the policy that people don't understand.
Can we get a communication or an FAQ out to help people better understand this piece of what we're asking them to do? Hey, you know, it looks like we are going to have this particular issue in this particular region or this particular supplier or et cetera, et cetera. Right?
It's a feedback loop back to the team so that the team can be responsive and flexible in its. In getting information back out to employees. So there's the ambassadors carrying the water as champions of the ENC program, sharing materials, sharing best practices, sharing FAQs, that sort of thing. And then also the other side of that feedback loop is the other piece. So you want to be measuring the delta between what you heard from employees before you had a program and what you are hearing from employees after you've had a program and. Or put the program in place. And how can you quantify that risk mitigation that comes from people being comfortable raising their hand for individual ambassadors. You want to be looking at things like usage of the materials that you're creating, participation in ambassador conversations, you know, feedback that's coming back from the ambassadors to you about questions that employees are asking. We are also seeing, you know, organizations ask survey questions like, do you know who your ambassador is?
Audit sometimes when they're in the region can say, hey, who's the ambassador for this particular office? Do you guys know?
And that also gives you a sense of kind of how visible is this person in their role, an ethics and compliance related ambassador. So just a couple of ideas, but this is an ongoing conversation as organizations are thinking about both how do we measure the impact of having this extension of the program and how do we then also measure the individual performance of the people involved?
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you very much for answering this one because this is a topic that when I speak to people out in the field, this topic comes up all the time. And I know we always say that there's no one way to approach ethics compliance, but you know, on a, on a micro level, the topic of ambassador programs or champion programs really seem to indicate just how varied and how bespoke people's solutions are. And, and you know, it's hard to kind of gauge one to one, one company's champion program to another champion program. So really appreciate your top level advice on this.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: Yeah, no, absolutely. And Bill, you know, to anybody out there that's contemplating either, you know, creating a Champions program or revamping or expanding their champions program, first off, Bella has a ton of resources on this question. So please, you know, don't feel like you have to start from scratch. Lots of ways to get inspiration on how these programs can, can function well. But the second thing is it doesn't surprise me at all that this is a topic that we're talking about so much now because as I said, you know, in my original answer, the ethics and the centralized ethics and compliance team cannot possibly be everywhere they're needed.
And so how do you, how do you expand your impact without expanding your footprint? And the answer to that is a well run campaigns program.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Well, Erica, thank you so much for weighing in on this question. I know the Bella community appreciates it. I appreciate our viewers appreciate it. So once again, thank you so much for being so generous with your insights and with your mindshare.
[00:07:11] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely, Bill. My pleasure. As I say at the end of every Bella Asks episodes, to everybody out there listening, please keep the questions coming because if we don't know what's on your mind, then we can't share what's on ours.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Visit@the sphere.com Bella to request guest access to the member resource hub and and to speak with the Bella engagement director. And if you have a question that you would like answered on this program, contact the Bella Concierge service and we'll get to work on it for you right away.
This has been another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. Thanks so much for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the show. For new episodes each week, be sure to subscribe to us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. And if you haven't Already, please follow ETHASphere on LinkedIn to learn more about how we help organizations measure and improve their ethics and compliance programs. Together, we can make the world a better place by advancing business integrity. That's all for now, but until next time. Remember, strong ethics is good business.
