Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everyone. Today we'll discuss the important changes to the Ethics Quotient Questionnaire at the heart of the World's Most Ethical Companies applications process. I'm your host Bill Coffin, and this is the Ethicast.
On July 31, 2025, the the applications portal to the 2026 World's Most Ethical Companies Recognition Program will open. The World's Most Ethical Companies is an annual recognition honoring organizations that lead with integrity, prioritize ethical business practices, and demonstrate a commitment to doing what's right.
Those companies that have applied in the past know full well the magnitude of the task ahead as they work diligently to answer the more than 240 questions of the Ethics Quotient Questionnaire, or EQ, a comprehensive evaluation of an applicant's ethics and compliance program, culture and governance practices.
Every year the EQ undergoes revision to match the ever evolving business integrity landscape, and this year's revisions are especially important as they reflect the most recent trends, challenges, emerging issues, and best practices in ethics and compliance. Ethisphere will release the revised EQ on June 30, giving prospective applicants about a month to review its changes and and prepare for the applications process.
Joining us today to discuss this year's changes to the EQ is Ethisphere Director Data and Services, Neil Thurston. Neil, thank you for joining us.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Thank you, Bill.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: So, Neil, exactly how does the Ethics Quotient revision process work? In particular, how does the team decide what needs updating or inclusion?
[00:01:40] Speaker B: That's a wonderful question. There are a lot of different conversations that happen throughout the the calendar year as well as our EQ year. I would say that this process largely starts after the prior year's process ends. Our team likes to get together, discuss what we saw within the responses, and based on conversations with ourselves about applicant feedback, which we get throughout the process as well as the rest of the year from places like roundtables and and other areas where Ethisphere gets to speak to and interact with people in the Ethics and Compliance Committee.
Our review team members get information, important information, feedback from those groups, as well as our understanding of the current and emerging regulatory environments.
We take a lot of this information. We sit down together several times, generally throughout the spring and early summer to discuss what did we see in the prior year's eq?
Where do we want to make sure that questions and responses really do reflect changing environments, reflect Ethisphere's understanding of best practices, and where we want to encourage growth with ethics and compliance programs and organizations in general.
So we do have a number of meetings throughout this period of time. We look over our responses, we look for clarifications, we look for areas where we, we can give better data back to our, you know, everybody involved with and who looks at the eq.
So then we assemble that and fairly close up to when we start the next process.
We put all of our thoughts together, we put all of our sections together and we create the brand new EQ as well as the new documentation requests and the supporting documents around that, such as the guidance around document request, the help videos, all of the other little bits and pieces that help create the WMEC experience. We put that together and have it ready in time for the launch of WMEC for the next process. And that's right at the end of July.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: What are some of this year's biggest changes to the eq and is there anything in there that companies that applied last year might find especially different or challenging to respond to?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: I think that last bit is very important.
There is change, right? And there is a degree of change that happens every year. This year in particular has seen a large amount of regulatory environment change and we wanted the EQ to reflect that. We also heard a lot back from participants as well as from those groups at roundtables, other places who were saying we want better data, we want better a better way to get simple responses, to get more fine grained data out of that, to get things that are truly useful for our organization. We've heard you and we are adjusting the EQ in order to do that, right? To that end we are probably going to see a slight increase in the number of questions as we have taken some questions and pulled them apart.
We are also seeing a change from the prior year where we asked a lot of please explain what your process was type of questions. Right, write us 100 words, 200 words around, for example, your process with third party risk management.
We've looked at those responses and we have pulled out data points that we felt were going to be truly useful for people looking to mature their third party risk practices. For example, we've done this all across the EQ where we've taken that data, taken that feedback, created questions that will give you all actionable data back. Yes. The key things really looking at are those simplifications, the changes to actionable data that will come out of this as.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: The world's most ethical companies application window approaches. What advice do you have for prospective applicants in terms of how they can best adapt to the EQ's most recent revisions?
[00:05:39] Speaker B: I would say the key element that will help out organizations and especially their lead point people on these applications. It's best to have a lead person, somebody who can coordinate the flow of information around your organization as you're trying to gather documents, as you're trying to gather answers. Organization is the number one thing that will help out this year. Especially organizations will add those point people and those teams will be able to see the EQ prior to the opening of this year's season. Our team is working to get that into people's hands so that you can go through your organization and you can figure out who needs to answer what. Be able to see the questions and be ready for it when the application opens this year.
I would say starting early on that process will save you a lot of time and a lot of headaches with trying to figure out the right person to answer these questions. Find documentation, things like that. Make sure your point person is organized. We intend to release a version of the EQ questions that sit inside of an Excel spreadsheet so that people can organize, they can figure out, hey, how are we thinking about answering these questions in ways that don't rely purely on a PDF? Right.
Look at the written guidance.
Really look at the way that we framed the explanations behind why we're looking, for example, for certain documents. We've taken a lot of pains this year to make sure that people understand this is what we're reviewing these documents for. This is why it's important to the process to see behind simply why somebody says they do a process to look at. How are companies leading with that process? What is the unique thing? What is the element there that you're putting into these processes that makes you stand out as an ethics and compliance leader, as an organizational leader, as an impacts leader? Right.
One thing to kind of understand about this year's process is we really want to emphasize that the documentation request is a substantial amount of the WMEC evaluation.
These documents are something that we weight in great proportion to the EQ responses. We want to make sure that people understand that not submitting those documents really does negatively affect our reviewers ability to understand how your organization is a leader.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Neil, thanks for joining us and walking us through this year's EQ revision. It's clear that a lot of work has gone into it.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: Absolutely, it has. Thank you so much.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: It's been a pleasure to request application information for the 2026 World's Most Ethical Companies. Please visit worldsmostethicalcompanies.com while you're there. Be sure to subscribe to the Ethisphere Insights newsletter at the bottom of the page for news and updates.
To take advantage of Ethisphere's vast library of free E and C program resources, please visit the Ethisphere Resource center at ethisphere.com resources.
If you would like to appear as a guest on the ethacast to share a best practice success story or your own proof point around how business integrity manages risk and builds value, we would love to hear from you. To drop us a line, visit ethisphere.com ethicast thanks for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. It really helps this program.
That's all for now, but until next time, remember, strong ethics is good business.
