By Jean-Pierre Amiel, ASQ Senior, CQA ret., Web Committee Chair
A review of our latest webinar on 25 January 2023 with Sophie Gagnon.
And you thought you knew everything about ISO standards? Well, like 72% of the participants, we didn't know that ISO had published a standard on anti-corruption management in 2016 and that it was about to be updated. In fact, Sophie Gagnon, our guest speaker, explained to us that we should not really rely on the title of this standard because it deals mainly with all the values of the company, i.e. ethics. She shared her career path as a manufacturing engineer and in continuous improvement/process innovation and what finally led her to do a master's degree in applied ethics, her favourite hobby.
From his presentation, we learned that there are over 7,900 sites (2,996 companies) certified to this standard worldwide and that 28% are in Italy, 17% in Indonesia, 10% in Korea. The rest are mostly in Asian countries and Latin America. What about Quebec? There is Hydro Quebec and the municipality of Granby (!) and it seems that Pomerleau is in the development phase. Could we be shocked if we believe the front pages of construction contracts here? In 2018, following the Commission of Inquiry into the awarding and management of public contracts in the construction industry, the Quebec government passed a law allowing the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (RBQ) the latitude to participate in the prevention and fight against fraudulent practices and corruption in construction. This voluntary approach is based on the main principles of the standard for evaluating and awarding Integrity certificates.
There was a lot of discussion and exchange on the approach to implementing such a system and also how an organization could audit itself, be audited and certify its integrity. Sophie took us back to the principles of the standard, which sets out ". . . requirements for management systems designed to help organisations prevent, detect and combat corruption, and to comply with anti-bribery laws and voluntary commitments applicable to their activities". Thus, prevention through the implementation of risk analysis of opportunities for slippage in order to put in place systems and mechanisms that can reduce or eliminate them. This means assessing the various risks: governance; ethics; non-compliance with laws and regulations; human resources; people; information security; tenders; selection committees; collusion and inadequate auditing. Secondly, to ensure that a common vision of the company's values is developed, defined, communicated to staff and validated. To be morally correct not only internally, but also externally.
Sophie then presented and reminded us of the four phases of the implementation of a system: Plan - Deploy - Control - Act, but not necessarily in a continuous line, but rather in a loop of validations in order to ensure the achievement of each block. She then presented a portrait of the approach used in Quebec to develop internal systems so as to qualify for a Certificate of Integrity. She concluded by presenting another view of ethics - Knowing when and how to think - in reference to the process a professional uses when acting appropriately in a situation.
You missed a good presentation.
We look forward to continuing discussions on this and other topics in the future.
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