Our journey towards sustainability

Our clients
Key drivers: materiality top issues
20
Culture — a leadership priority?
Codes of conduct, policies and other
mechanisms have been long present
and can be useful in instilling professional
values. However, we have witnessed an
increase in importance of these mechanisms
since the crisis, as a key part of leadership
action. In addition, many organizations are
reevaluating the expectations from leadership
about embedding a desirable culture.
Organizations are encouraging a desired
culture through changing incentive structures
by rewarding employees for upholding high
ethical standards.
We recognize that ethical behavior starts
at the top and that senior management and
leadership can be the driving force behind
changing the culture of an organization. Our
2015 EMEIA Fraud survey found that
engagement with senior management is
considered key to cultural change and ethics.
EY’s 2015 briefing Bank boards are set to
undergo further transformation states that the
next major evolution for how boards operate
needs to be in conduct and culture. Banks
have not progressed on these issues as far
as regulators expect.
Helping clients to understand
the motivations behind behavior
to drive change
It can be difficult to measure culture.
Most organizations either use perception
data (surveys) solely or only outcome
data (customer complaints) to gain an
understanding of underlying culture drivers of
behaviors. This approach has its limitations
and stakeholders now understand this.
Our People Advisory Services (PAS) teams
work with our FS clients to help drive change
Staff are remunerated on ‘what’ they do as well as ‘how’ they do it,
while previously this was only on ‘what’. In branches, remuneration
has shifted from ‘sales’ to ‘service’.
Senior Manager from a global banking group
from a cultural, behavioral and risk
perspective, helping organizations to
understand the different motivations
that drive people’s behavior and developing
conduct measures that lead to sustainable
performance parameters.
There is a lot being done across Financial
Services to (re-)instil ethical standards
with the customer in mind. Culture, ethics,
behaviors and corporate integrity go to the
heart of building confidence and trust in
the financial system. As organizations and
leadership look to understand more about
the drivers of personal behavior, particularly
in relation to the management of risk, it is
insightful to understand the effect companies
have on the ethical orientation of individuals.
Read more on The challenges of risk
culture, behaviour and corporate
integrity in financial services (2015).
Managing our own ethical
practices
Living our values is key to our business.
EY’s approach to business ethics and
integrity is embedded in a culture of
consultation, training programs and
internal communications, such as the
EY Ethics hotline. For more information
about how we address instilling our
professional values, our code of conduct
and the importance of independence,
please refer to our statement in this
report’s GRI Content Index.
We recognize that ethical
behavior starts at the top and
that senior management and
leadership can be the driving
force behind changing the culture
of an organization.
To find out more
about our People
Advisory
Services (PAS)
practice, please
click here
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