Speaking Up About Compliance And Ethics: Insights From The Caribbean

As various new laws make it obligatory to have a professional whistleblowing infrastructure in place to report all sorts of wrongdoings, one important reason for implementing a whistleblowing system is "to be compliant". The increasing attention for compliance we are experiencing in Europe seems to absorb the field of "ethics". Is this trend noticeable in other parts of the world?

We asked Angélique Parisot-Potter, Group Senior Vice President & General Counsel at Massy Group of Companies, to share her insights about compliance and ethics with us.

  1. People tend to speak about compliance when they have ethics in mind. Which perspective did you choose when working on the implementation of the whistleblowing channel as part of Massy's Speak Up culture?

    I've always been an advocate of a values based culture. Compliance tends to focus more on following the rules but the reality is that you can't prescribe for every ethical dilemma a person may face. With this in mind and even though there are no laws requiring a whistleblowing channel certainly in Trinidad & Tobago, I felt that it was critical to demonstrate to our people that they could have a secure, confidential and anonymous means to raise issues concerns or questions about anything without retaliation or victimisation, without fear or favour. While it would always be preferable to have an organisational culture where people feel empowered to raise issues - and this is something we are actively pursuing - based on my experience you need to have a channel which allows people to raise issues without feeling compromised or fearful or because they simply don't feel that they know who to trust or speak with.

  2. Do you see a relation between the recent increase in efforts to fight corruption in the Caribbean (such as the establishment of the Commonwealth Caribbean Association of Integrity Commission and Anti-Corruption) and the sense of responsibility of individual organisation?s to establish channels for employees to speak up about wrongdoings?

    In the Caribbean it is going to take a very very long time to get to where we need to get. But every step counts. It takes one ripple to set a series of ripples in motion and that is what I'm trying to do at Massy. My hope is that other organisations in Trinidad & Tobago and in the Caribbean will see the benefits of having a forum or channel for open communication even if it is anonymous. Traditionally, those who spoke up were viewed as 'tattle tales' and it...

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