Canadian HR Reporter

CANADIAN HR REPORTER April 17, 2017 8 NEWS e training also includes an annual review and attestation of TD's code of conduct and ethics by every employee, from those who serve customers to senior management, said Hill. "is code of conduct requires our employees to act ethically, with integrity, honesty, fairness and professionalism, and to not allow a focus on business results to come before our focus on our customers. We take our commitment to ethics and integrity very seriously." Ethics and trust are the corner- stones of the banking business, so any decision an employee makes needs to be living those values, said Cook. "I'm a firm believer that if we focus on the right behaviour, the results will come and so I think that there's opportunities — when you're setting goals with employ- ees, when you're designing what you hope to achieve from a sales perspective — that embedded in that are the right behaviours and not just a hyper-focus on the results." at needs to go hand-in-hand with a system that's also checking for understanding, she said. "(at means) frequent check- ins that test for understanding around codes of ethics or codes of conduct; making certain that the message has been received and… that means we're communicat- ing it in a lot of different ways, so maybe we have an online quiz for employees that has them check in and re-sign every year their will- ingness to comply with the code of ethics, and ways that test they understand what that means." It's also about using videos and social media, and talking about it often enough so the message is re- ceived in the way it was intended, said Cook. "You want to make sure em- ployees can take that and apply it to a whole bunch of situations because in the complexity of to- day's jobs, it's probably not pos- sible to provide a scenario and then a response to every possible ethical dilemma somebody might face. You can assure that they have knowledge and it's deep enough that they can apply it to new situ- ations," she said. "I think that there's enough training, I think we need to be pretty vigilant in ensuring it's the right training because just more of something that hasn't really worked isn't going to help." Beyond the training And it's not sufficient to focus solely on training; it's about the whole system, such as pay for performance, decisions around promotions or leadership behav- iours, said Cook. "It has to be really integrated into everything that you do, as opposed to 'Well, every quarter, here's two hours of training.' It needs to be front and centre of all of those other aspects of the sys- tem," she said. "There's that formal training and then there's all the informal things that are going on, all the rewards and rituals and recogni- tion that are sending signals to employees all the time… ere's some tiny things we can do around rewarding the right behaviours which, if it's all organized cor- rectly, get us to the right results." It all starts with leadership, said Irwin, citing the situation with Wells Fargo in the United States where thousands of employees allegedly created millions of fake bank accounts. "It's not some rogue front-line sales rep who decides to do it, it was widespread among a huge group of people and either senior management was not paying at- tention or asking the right ques- tions," he said. "Somewhere along the line, se- nior management has to be ask- ing the question of themselves: 'Why is this happening?'... And if they don't understand it, then they're not functioning as good managers." The lines of communication have to be open, and a big source of that is through the HR depart- ment, said Irwin. "Our HR department plays a vital role in terms of being tapped into what's going on with em- ployees, and at every manage- ment meeting, there's always a pulse check in terms of what's happening on the front lines, how is management being perceived, are there issues with employees, are there issues emerging, should we be aware of them? And if there are, then we task people with delv- ing into it and reporting back. You can't fly blindly ahead and not provide that two-way communi- cation with the front line." At TD, employees are encour- aged to come forward if they have an issue, said Hill. "Our leaders are face-to-face with employees on a regular basis to address any issues and reinforce our commitments." And if employees don't feel comfortable escalating their con- cerns or questions to their lead- ers, TD offers other channels, including human resources, a confidential and anonymous employee ombuds group, and a confidential and anonymous whistleblower hotline and web- site, hosted by an independent third party, she said. "Social media is another chan- nel at TD where we welcome speaking with our employees if they choose, and getting feed- back from them directly. We act on concerns raised through any of these channels." Employees in general may choose to go public on social me- dia because they feel as though their voice hasn't been heard in some other way, said Cook. "So (it's about) setting up sys- tems through approachable man- agers and other feedback sys- tems, employee suggestion pro- grams, whistleblower programs, to have this level of emphasis on trust and ethics. You also have to be open to feedback from your stakeholders — if they've seen something, you need to give them a way to provide that feed- back to you." And employees need to know what happens with their com- plaints, because problems can arise when there isn't necessarily a loop closure, she said. "The dream scenario is you have something set up where employees feel comfortable com- ing forward if they've seen some- thing or they've felt pressure to do something or if they've overheard something, where they can come forward and have an honest con- versation about that." Lines of communication must be open SALESPEOPLE < pg. 7 "ere's all the informal things going on that are sending signals to employees."

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