Archiv der Kategorie: Governance

Governance covers regulations and control aspects.

Join the contract, quit the contract – Good riddance

Many services are offered today as a membership. It starts with the fitness center around the corner, is valid for a membership in an automobile association, up to a subscription with Netflix. In order to benefit from the advantages of the membership, you sign a contract. As soon as you do not pay or even cancel, the agreed advantages are lost. You can join the contract without delay, but also quickly quit the contract – Good riddance.

mitgliedschaft

This is valid for all, but perhaps some believe that this is not valid for them, as you can see from the expectations of the British. They actually believe that they quit (which they did not do yet) and nevertheless are able to further use the advantages of the European Union – of course without the appropriate obligations. Although contracts are always defined the same way.

  • Terms
    Here you specify, how long the offer remains in full force and effect. As soon as the period has expired, a vendor is no longer bound to offer the deliverables with the indicated conditions. With the exit of the British it is rather the matter that the BREXIT will take at least over two years. Since David Cameron refuses tactically quitting the contract, it is open, when the exit period really starts. For the time of being, they are a member.
  • Conditions
    It is unclear, which conditions are valid, as soon as they quit. On the one hand England is then any longer part of the EU, but additionally not yet outside. What this means for payments, liabilities, laws, and so on will be clarified in the upcoming negotiations. Thus, the British still have another grace period, in order to adjust themselves to the loss of the European rights. For the rest of Europe nothing else remains to be done as to use the time for executing the relocation of banks, enterprises and institutions as well as to build up new tactical economic sites.
  • Rights
    The contracting parties lose with the cancellation at latest after two years the rights that resulted from the contract. It starts with fiscal arrangements, goes across import and export barriers as well as the loss of full say in European decisions, to the freedom of the citizens to travel. Swiss can tell a lot of not being involved in the agreements.
  • Conflict resolutions
    The question is, how it will be proceeded in case of conflict. England will become a non-European location, comparable with those countries, which yet did not achieve to make agreements with Europe. While it is clearly regulated so far, where legally obligatorily disputes are solved, in the future almost insurmountable walls arise that at least let the costs explode in the economic exchange. It is unlikely that this will be to the disadvantage for Europe. The luxury goods will be more expensive, but this should not be really a problem for the wealthy people in England. When this legal security gets lost, is not yet foreseeable.

Each golf and tennis court is prepared to allow non-members to their courses. The players cannot avoid paying an extra fee after they waited patiently in the line, in order to be let in at all. This should be clear for the Englishmen.

Bottom line: The current state is actually simple. The English want to withdraw. Okay. As island people they are used to go their own ways. In this case, it should be guaranteed by the European politicians that no back doors are opened that would be paid eventually by the EU citizens. Let us hope that the correct measures were already introduced, to take the European Union-relevant elements off from England and to re-activate the border barriers. Join the contract, quit the contract – Good riddance!

Let the staff whistle internally

In the first decades of the Internet the form of public sphere and sharing, above all, has changed. Politics, economy and our leisure time look completely different today. Although enterprises exploit in all areas the opportunities of the Information Technology, solutions for an internal culture of self-criticism are not yet sufficiently in place. Traditional hierarchies are just as provocative as centralistic nations. The official routine is not sufficient, in order to guarantee compliance. Information follows its own rules and finds its way into the public. Companies cannot afford any longer to practice business at the edge or even behind legality. To understand the price of a leakage, we have to wait until we will see the costs of the current crisis at Volkswagen. In any case it will cost billions Euros. Instead of pushing the Whistleblower into the arms of the broad public sphere, it would be better to open internal channels that permit the staff to fulfill their need and to whistle internally.

Whistleblower02 bw

The board and the executives must understand that the early uncovering of illegal activities ensures the viability of the enterprise. It is not a matter of betrayal, disloyalty or unfaithfulness to reveal or publish scandals by so-called whistleblowers, but a mechanism of the self-preservation. Nobody stands above or outside of the law. Unfortunately bosses perceive it differently. Whistleblowers are considered as traitors. The efforts of the enterprise are limited to the effectively published implementation of an internal revision. Their task is to discover flaws and to suggest improvement measures. Why not establishing an internal whistleblower system that allows all employees to communicate their observations anonymously, without being afraid of personal consequences? For this purpose it can be helpful to consider the following aspects.

  • Holistic focus
    There should be an internal understanding of the enterprise as a whole that stigmatizes departmental egoisms and personal agendas that create disadvantages for the enterprise.
  • Principle of subsidiarity
    Well delimited authorities distribute responsibilities across organizations. In the end the board is no longer automatically liable for failure on a lower level, but the actual responsible people. This is particularly valid for the report of serious offenses.
  • Publish company values
    Laws apply for all employees and executives the same way as for every other citizen. The internal publication of the obligation to comply with laws within the corporate values is important in order to eliminate the impression of the employees that they are in a lawless area.
  • Error culture
    Information that is received through an internal registration office should not be automatically basis for sanctions, but the starting point for eliminating drawbacks.
  • Zero-tolerance
    Illegal behavior should be treated internally in such a way as in the rest of the society. Not each case results in a legal case. Arbitration bodies allow learning from errors and facilitate an adjustment, without the need to unreasonably sanction the failure. In some cases it is inevitable to report certain people to official instances, since you make yourself guilty due to connivance.
  • Sense of injustice
    A new task for legal or the newly created compliance departments will be the education of the right understanding of the employees. Only with this sense of injustice, together with the internal procedure for whistleblowers, the enterprise can hope for better compliance of the employees.
  • Internal whistling
    Difficulties happen frequently at the individual workplaces. Employees can trigger corrections of erroneous trends for the advantage of the enterprise and thus for the own well-being. In some cases the difficulties become only visible from a holistic perspective. Then also executives have to participate.

The conception that large organizations are lawless areas is over, at the latest since the introduction of compliance departments. Whether an enterprise gets a sense of justice by employing former FBI officials may be a matter of calming of relations with US-authorities. However, compliance begins in the mind of each employee. In order to prevent inner conflicts of the employees, it is surely smarter to let them whistle internally.

Bottom line: Nobody stands above the law. And laws that must be obeyed can be found in all areas of the enterprise. An internal system for reporting illegal practices is better than pushing the employees into the public. The damage is then much larger. For this reason enterprises should let their staff whistle internally.