* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
By Michelle Witton
Last week Ernst & Young announced findings of their Fraud team’s research that 72% of middle managers are unaware of the UK Bribery Act. Of the 28% of middle managers who are aware of the Act, only 55% felt they had received adequate training. With the anniversary of the Act’s introduction, 1st July 2011, fast approaching John Smart of Ernst & Young commented, “firms should ramp up their compliance procedures to ensure that clear anti-bribery policies are in place…and that relevant staff at least receive sufficient training.” This begs the questions, “who are relevant staff?” and “what is sufficient training?” both for staff and an organisation.
Who should receive Anti-bribery training?
This question is addressed by the Government’s guidance on the Act. Training should be provided widely to staff, especially to higher corruption-risks roles, such as supply chain, government relations and business development. All employees in middle management and above should receive Anti-corruption training. Training should be cascaded to junior employees, focusing on areas relevant to many, such as gifts and entertainment, conflicts of interest and use of company assets.
Anti-corruption Training
Secondly, what does sufficient training look like? The majority of my clients choose 2-4 hour face-to-face workshops, depending on the seniority of staff receiving training. Anti-corruption training should cover the:
- definition of bribery (active and passive),
- contexts in which bribery can occur,
a) gifts and entertainment
b) use of company assets
c) political donations
d) conflicts of interest
e) charitable donations and sponsorships
f) dealing with intermediaries
3. prohibition on facilitation payments,
4. international legal background to the UK Act,
5. overview of the UK Act and its extra-territorial - reach,
6. cases and penalties to date (under UK and US legislation)
7. industry specific case examples and scenarios.
Make it interactive!
Most importantly, training should be memorable. And a positive memory! There’s an important distinction to be made between “training’ and “torture” which came home to me recently when seated in a training and confronted with 100+ powerpoint slides! Training is and should be learning. We learn and retain most when we’re engaged – when we think, speak, do.
What interactive methods can be incorporated?
- Scenario discussion – based on actual cases or created, ideally industry-specific.
- “War stories” – one of the most impactful experiences is inviting participants to share their “war stories” – bribery-risk situations and how they have dealt with them.
- Conversation rehearsal - participants roleplay a scenario between themselves, many occurring concurrently in the training room, followed by feedback.
- Roleplay - humorous, dramatic scenarios performed by professional actors.
- Forum Theatre - a type of roleplay, providing the chance for training delegates to stop the actors and offer ideas on direction of the conversation/action.
- Games - learning through play. Create a story, have teams competitively solve a scenario with clues included along the way).
- Video – there are a wealth of anti-corruption videos on Youtube including the “Say No To Corruption” series created by the UNDP.
Remote training – Bribery Act Now
One of the most significant practical challenges of conducting training, particularly in global or multi-site companies, is securing busy staff to attend the training. Anti-bribery training is on Tuesday in Glasgow – but Suzy is on a flight to Beijing.
I am a co-producer of Bribery Act Now, a series of 5 short anti-bribery videos that are intended to address this exact problem. Streamed from the Cloud, they are viewable on desktops, ipads and Blackberry’s, making training accessible to travelling and remote staff. The videos include entertaining skits and dramas and can also be used in face-to-face workshops. Topics in the series include an Overview of the Bribery Act, Gifts and Entertainment and Conflicts of Interest. The system includes quizes and client reports on viewings and test results, providing for measureablity.
Measurability and Adequate Procedures
It is important for organizations to be able to produce evidence of their anti-bribery training to demonstrate to the courts, if required “Adequate Procedures.” They will need to able to demonstrate, for example, that Jeff Bloggs attended or remotely received Anti-bribery training on a certain date and his passmark for testing. This is why measurability, an important feature of Bribery Act Now, is crucial.
Go forth and train – and make it memorable!
Michelle Witton (www.mwethics.com) is a compliance lawyer, specializing in Bribery Act 2010 compliance. She has worked for Anglo American plc, AstraZeneca plc and Airbus and is co-presenter of the training series “Bribery Act Now” (www.briberyactnow.com).
Michelle can be contacted on 07950 932070.
