Aflac's Basic Ethics Policies and Social Responsibility Policies - Case Study Example

? Aflac's Basic Ethics Policies and Social Responsibility Policies Contents Introduction 3 Corporate Social Responsibility 4 Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility 4 Codes of Conduct 5 Communication 6 Ethics 7 Ethics and Policies 7 Ethical Values 8 Change Management 8 Introduction Aflac Company is among the Fortune 500 Companies, which has a good reputation because of its CSR practises and being an ethical company. The company is committed to ensuring that it makes a positive impact in the lives of its clients, employees and the world at large through its CSR and ethical practises, which have endeared it to many. It is among the companies that have strived to create a balance between work and family, in addition to which it practises gender equality having the highest number of women at supervisory level of management (Faleye & Trahan 2011, p.6). The key CSR practises that have enabled Aflac to often rank high among most of the sustainability index such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) amongst others include the multi-purpose recycling program for plastics, office papers among other wastes such aluminium metals (Aflac, 2012a; Forster, Loughran & Mcdonald 2009, p.129). Aflac has come to understand the crucial role played by CSR and ethical practises and conformity programs in promoting the brand of a company and this explains why it been in the Ethisphere list of socially responsible companies continually. This recognition is further attributed to the company dedication to engaging in activities that mutually benefit the communities in which the company operates and enhances is success while maintaining high ethical standards. Aflac focuses on three key areas; compassion, multiplicity and the ability to uphold its purpose, it is dedicated to looking after its own congregation and is mainly concerned with its miscellaneous work force. Consequently, individuals in the societies in which the company operates in have come to have expectations that, it assumes more responsibilities to the public, and this is based on the assumption that the company makes so much money at the expense of the public. It is believed by the management of Aflac that these expectations will continue to increase in the future as the company goes on expanding its activities all over the globe. In addition, the company has come up with environmentally friendly plans to ensure that its negative impact on the environment remains minimal. Thus, its participation in corporate social responsibility can be said to have increased the role of this company in the society by making sure that it participates in making the environment a better place in which to live. Because of this, the company has come to adopt the theory of corporate social responsibility, which is an approach it utilizes when dealing with the impact its business activities have on the societies and the environment, in which it is involved. Corporate Social Responsibility Implementing Corporate Social Responsibility Corporate social responsibilities refer to the actions undertaken by a corporation in order to cater for the welfare of all its stakeholders i.e. its clients, employees and especially to the communities they operate in promoting social welfare. Recently, there has been questioning of the current statements about the advantages of corporate social responsibility and the declarations that companies make on behalf of their corporate social responsibility programs. In particular, it has been suggested that the use of corporate social responsibility for the sake of public relations raises ethical predicaments over the motivation of companies. There have also been warnings concerning the justifications that either companies employ may be dishonest or imprecise with regard to the practical substantiation obtained from small-scale qualitative researches undertaken in the 1980s, a period when the exercise of corporate social responsibility was growing rapidly (Brown 2011, p.78). There has been the suggestion that companies only take such actions when they feel obliged to do so by consumer and environmental groups. While this has been the argument, programs in social responsibility include actions to create a better environment to live in for the society and other stakeholders. A corporation like Alfac is accountable, stands for systems that have a positive impact on its society, and requires strategies to implement these systems (PRNews, 2010). CSR programs facilitate the satisfaction and fulfilment of customer’s requirements/needs by corporations since they increase their esteem by making them feel more worth in the society. Furthermore, these CSR initiatives also play a key role in giving corporations an added competitive advantage since they attract a great number of customers hence increasing the sales. It can be said that public relations and corporate social responsibility, when dealing with this company, are not separate activities that should be evaluated separately but that all too often; these business activities are interrelated in such a way that corporate social responsibility has become a tool for public relations. At Aflac, corporate social responsibility is often managed by public relations practitioners to establish good relations with the local communities within which the company’s social responsibility activities are being conducted, as well as other groups that are influential in society (CSRwire, 2012; Hemphill & Lillevik 2009, p.105). In addition, it can be argued that corporate social responsibility has become significant to public relations because the programs involved in it offer the chance to establish good will by endorsing the advantages of the company to its stakeholders. Therefore, with regard to Insurance policy companies like Aflac, CSR initiatives and programs always leads to an increment in the sales of their policies as many people or clients feel indebted to the company, and this leads to the continued success and growth of Aflac. Codes of Conduct Companies Codes of conduct usually act as a means of determining and directing how companies workforces, and interested parties behave and conduct themselves in the work place. These codes of conduct, similarly to legal laws, usually play a key role in ensuring that employees’ engagements, as persons or as an assembly are appropriate while carrying out their responsibilities in different circumstances, especially when providing services to customers, handling corporation assets, and when executing business-based tasks. Because of its strong sense of corporate responsibility, Aflac has come to develop a strong corporate culture based on it and these are collective behaviours that are taught to those employees who have recently joined the company, which enshrine the ideals and objectives of the company. Their strong sense of corporate social responsibility has had an influence on how the employees of Aflac conduct themselves in almost every aspect of their lives, in respect to their work, to create a good image (PR Releases, 2011; Dixit 2009, p.5). It has affected how employees interact with their fellow employees, all their clients, as well as the other stakeholders of the company. Therefore, every stakeholder in the Aflac fraternity be it the management, employees are governed by the set code of conduct in order to foster a culture that is directed at being ethical and socially responsible while delivering services to the clients. In addition, by implementing and fostering these codes of conduct to its stakeholders, Aflac has continually witnessed success due to the professionalism practised in its service to clients. Communication The development of efficient communication systems is the single most noteworthy thing that determines whether a company becomes successful and achieves the goals, which have been set for it by its management. When considering the implementation of a communication system, four key elements that determine the success of the company once it has implemented such a system and the first of these are the values, which define the principles that are at the core of the ethical culture of the company. The second element to be considered is the individuals within the company who embody its ethical values because, without them, there would be no proper influence through which the proper ethics of the company could be spread (Reed, 2009; Friedrichs 2009, p.45). The third element is the routine interactions that are made between the members of the company that are full of strong symbolic qualities to make them feel like part of a family hence being comfortable in their work environment. Finally, there is the informal communication system within the company that not only determines how well people work but also how they get to define the goals of the company and this is the reason why it is often best to ensure that the company has a strong communication and ethical culture. Ethics Ethics and Policies The code of ethics practiced in a company involves the social expectations and standards that determine the values and beliefs that hold the people working within the company together. In addition, these ethics have to be well known by employees so that they are determined by those signs and symbols that make the company recognized by those who work for it as well as its customers, and it is this which determines the way the people who work within this organization behave (CSR Press Release, 2012b; Eicher-Catt 2005, p.17). In this way, company employees have become an embodiment of the company’s code of ethics, and in most instances, it has been found that a shared sense of community is particularly prominent in the development of the ethical stance of the company (Curran 2004, p.1077). This is because it is an adhesive that holds together the community, and without a common means of communication within the company, then the implementation of the expected ethical values would not be effective. Ethics and policies enhance control in a company through management but mainly cover behavioural aspects like employees’ ethical conduct and their compliance with the law. Corporation ethics programs can also be significantly be said to be control systems that aim in regulating employees behaviour when it comes to ethics and policies. Ethical Values The best way to ensure that the company responds well to change is through the creation of a counterculture whose aim would be to replace the existing one. This involves the creation of ethics training programs whose aim is to inaugurate changes from the subculture level because it is extremely difficult to change the ethical values of an organization (Hersch, 2013). Since the changes will begin from basic ethical training at a subculture level, it is likely that the employees will be more willing to accept the change of organisational values. Moreover, the development of ethical training from a subculture level would enable the management to monitor how well the changes that are implemented are received by the employees. Most of the employees of the company, after an initial resistance, would be forced to conform to the new values set; otherwise, they would risk losing their positions within the company (Hemphill 2012, p.82). In fact, the employees will not only conform to the new cultural values, but they will be encouraged to increase their output to ensure their survival within the company. Change Management Most of the times the management of a company are usually motivated by CSR programs in ensuring that their companies are well administered and they do not take their role as leaders for granted. Aflac has witnessed much of its growth and success due to its ethical and CSR practises that it undertakes in the local communities and around the country. It is a fact that the leaders of Aflac tend to aim at creating internal and external environment that is highly receptive of change because they have come to realize that the acceptance of change is the key that determines whether the company becomes either a success or a failure in its corporate social responsibilities (CSR Press Release, 2012a). The ethical strategy used in the management of change in this company is what makes the difference on how well these changes are received by the individuals who are affected by them, and as such, it is what determines the level of success of newly implemented management strategies (Eling & Schmeiser 2010, p.9). It has been found that the best way to implement change management in this company is for the managers to recognize the fact that it is normal human behaviour to resist change. Therefore, as a corporate leader, the management of this company has come to rate itself using various characteristics of ethical leadership like consultations with employees and local communities if the change affects them and equality practice, sharing of power and clarification of their roles which will promote effectiveness and optimism about the intended change. In addition, when implementing their changes they have always been considerate of the local authorities statutes References Aflac. (2012a). Act Like a Duck: 2012 Corporate Citizenship report. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/us/en/docs/investors/CSRReport.pdf Aflac. (2012b). Aflac at A Glance. Retrieved from http://www.aflac.com/aboutaflac/corporateoverview/ Brown, S. (2011). And then we come to the brand: Academic insights from international bestsellers. Arts Marketing, 1(1), 70-86. CSR Press Release. (2012a). Aflac Releases 2012 Corporate Citizenship Report. 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