Lifting the Corporate Ethics Veil

Sometime back I wrote a blog about testing the Ethical Quotient of job applicants. The occasion was the action by an Infosys employee who called up the Delhi airport with a hoax bomb threat because he was delayed for a flight. He was arrested and I guess also sacked by the firm.

Today I read a very disturbing news item about an Infosys employee who, along with his wife, was arrested for alleged physical and mental abuse of a 14 year old girl who they had hired as a household help in Bangalore. So within a year, we have two incidents of personal misconduct of its employees that has placed the IT major in the public eye. Coming on the cusp of the year of the Child's Rights, this is a situation the company would have liked to avoid. Lets face it, a hoax bomb call is like a prank compared to abuse of a girl child. It is equally ironical and sad that a highly reputed company like Infosys has to go through this.

I am not going to write here again about the need for screening of potential employees and psychometric testing, because my point of view seems amply vindicated. What I would like to discuss is the issue of the Corporate Ethics veil - and where it needs to be lifted perhaps. I use child labour as an example, as it is both stark and contextual. Having worked in a manufacturing environment all my life I know that the potential risk of child labour is high in such companies - third party manufacturers, factory maintenance contractors, etc etc. But in a Knowledge-based industry like IT, the risk of child labour within the firm is rather limited. Obviously none of its employees can be children. They hardly have third party manufacturers. Vendors and service providers are verified and audited.

The highest risk of child labour in such a corporation then stems from its employees using children to work at home. Being double income families and frequent travellers, the employees often need someone to take care of their own kids. Child labour is cheap, obedient and doesn't talk back. I have IT employees as neighbours and many of them use girls who are 14 and below to take care of their kids.

What I would like to see is affirmative action from companies on two counts. One is to expand the scope of avoidance of child labour by the firm (usually a part of their Code of Ethics document), to include prohibition of such practices by employees in their personal capacity. The second is to make this a punishable offence on detection and back this by declarations from employees. This is what I meant by lifting the corporate ethics veil.

We live in an information era where adverse news spreads in a matter of seconds. Readers are not legal experts to discern what the limits of corporate responsibility are. Voluntary lifting of the corporate ethics veil protects the firm from reputation risks, especially on highly sensitive aspects like child labour.

Wish you all a happy 2010.