I’m mentoring some young professionals just entering the workplace. In thinking about guiding them, I wanted to clarify:

What values do professions, and organisations, expect of their employees?

What fundamental principles are these young people expected to display?

 

So this week I had a look at the codes of professional conduct for lawyers and accountants as well as the codes of ethics for several organisations.

(Organisational examples used in this blog are Capitec Bank, and the University of Johannesburg. Capitec was on my mind due to their considered approach to a Viceroy Research report; and UJ because, in many years working with academics, I noticed how the institution transformed itself under the leadership of former VC Ihron Rensburg, and made its values known through good marketing material.)

While the codes vary, they all foreground three elements, which are:

• Integrity

• Professional competence

• Upholding Constitutional values

 

Integrity is defined by the Oxford dictionary as the quality of being honest (free of deceit, sincere) and having strong moral principles.

Synonyms for integrity include being fair, decent, honourable, upright, trustworthy, and ethical.

The University of Johannesburg has four values. The first three rest on the fourth, an ethical foundation, which specifies that all UJ representatives must “nurture and actively promote an ethos of honesty, transparency, accountability and fairness in all our endeavours”.

Capitec says it values diversity, integrity, straightforwardness and transparency, among other qualities.

The Code of Conduct for Legal Practitioners requires attorneys to “behave towards others with integrity, fairness and respect, and without unfair discrimination, avoid(ing) any behaviour which is insulting or demeaning”.

“Doing” integrity. Does a young person setting out in her career automatically have integrity?

It depends. She may have developed her own moral code, and be a person whose every thought and action is aligned with who she is – in other words, have integrity to self.

If her “code”, or values, includes honesty, she will have integrity too. If this integrity is demanded by her profession or organisation, she should be aligned with its principles.

My conversations with young people, then, will be around how to be honest, fair and decent.

 

Professional competence. The SA Institute of Chartered Accountants defines this as “acting diligently in accordance with technical and professional standards, as well as maintaining one’s professional knowledge and skill”.

Ignore for the moment that SAICA is currently not seen as the finest arbiter of ethical conduct, being under fire for not acting strongly (or at all) in cases where CAs have brought the profession into disrepute.

Their definition of professional competence is useful because it says that a professional keeps learning. In order to offer the service you say you offer, you need to continue honing your professional knowledge and skill.

Lawyers, too, according to their Code, must “use their best efforts to carry out work in a competent and timely manner, and . . . not take on work which they do not reasonably believe they will . . . be able to carry out in that manner”. Their Code also requires them to “remain abreast of developments in their fields”.

“Doing” professional competence. The young people I’m working with are fortunate to have formal tertiary education and to be going into internships where they can gain experience. I’ll be encouraging them to grab every bit of learning they can, on an on-going basis, so they become – and stay – competent.

 

Constitutional values. The SA Constitution has among its founding principles, respect for human dignity, non-racialism and non-sexism, and supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law.

This one is harder to write about. When leaders in our society do not demonstrate these constitutional values, and when we cannot be certain that young people learn them at home, how can we be certain that a new employee has internalised them?

“Doing” constitutional values. Can an organisation “legislate” the attitudes of its employees? It can enforce behaviour, and suggest its support for attitudes and values in a Code, but ensuring that employees live these out? I believe I’ll gain more insight as I engage with bright, thoughtful, honest and competent young thinkers in the months to come.

 

References

 

Capitec Bank Holdings. 2018. Strategy and leadership documents 2014.

https://www.capitecbank.co.za/downloads/08.Our_strategy_and_leadership.pdf

Accessed 6 February 2018

 

The Law Society of South Africa. 2018. Code of Conduct for Legal Practitioners, Candidate Legal Practitioners, and Juristic Entities. http://www.lssa.org.za/upload/Code%20of%20Conduct%20for%20Legal%20Practitioners,Candidate%20Legal%20Practitioners%20and%20Juristic%20entities.pdf

Accessed 27 February 2018

 

Oxford University Press. 2018. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/integrity

Accessed 28 February 2018

 

The SA Institute of Chartered Accountants. 2018. Code of Professional Conduct of The South African Institute of Chartered Accountants 2017/2018 edition. https://www.saica.co.za/Portals/0/Technical/accounting/documents/Code%20of%20Professional%20Conduct.pdf

Accessed 27 February 2018.

 

University of Johannesburg. 2018. Vision, Mission and Values.

https://www.uj.ac.za/about/Pages/vision-mission-and-values.aspx

Accessed 6 February 2018