Ethics Process Outcomes

With the principles and goals in mind, from 1990 to 1992 the Office of Ethics and Business Conduct (OE&BC) at NYNEX accomplished the following:

• Created a corporate ethics code for all employees. The NYNEX Code of Business Conduct was drafted by OE&BC and then was reviewed by a cross section of managers.
• Opened business unit ethics offices throughout the corporation. Trained the staff in the corporate ombudsman role, ethics, equal employment opportunity and sexual har-assment, as well as listening and coaching skills.
• Conducted a Values and Vulnerabilities Assessment (VVA) to ascertain operating values, culture, ethical issues and potential areas of vulnerability. The VVA consisted of interviews with 96 executives and senior managers, 22 focus groups with mid- and lower-level managers and a survey of a 7,000-member cross section of employees.
• Established GuideLines-a service providing telephone numbers and mailboxes for employees to use to ask questions and report possible wrongdoing.
• Began regular publication of the Ethics Leadership Review, an internal newsletter focusing on tough ethics issues and possible ways to resolve them.
• Developed and delivered workshops for senior managers to increase awareness of ethics issues as perceived by employees, and to give managers the necessary skills to ensure that ethical standards are met. Workshops initiated for middle management featured a review of the new Code of Business Conduct and gave participants an opportunity to comment on the draft and on other ethics initiatives.
• Developed and delivered ethics awareness training for 80,000 employees.
• Communicated NYNEX’s policies on gifts and gratuities to all vendors and surveyed them to see how they viewed NYNEX’s ethical behavior.