Report on Code of Conduct: NAB's Approach to Ethical Practices

This report delves into the critical aspects of a code of conduct within an organization, emphasizing its role in fostering employee coordination, building compliance, and ensuring uniformity. It examines key areas such as discrimination, including direct, indirect, and organizational forms, highlighting the importance of fair practices and equal opportunities, especially for minority groups and indigenous employees. The report further addresses exploitation, defining its various forms and providing examples like sweatshop labor, while also exploring the concept of beneficial exploitation. Corruption is discussed, focusing on unethical activities like bribery and extortion. Additionally, the report covers dishonest and fraudulent behaviors, such as theft and the disclosure of sensitive information, and emphasizes the significance of whistleblower protection. The report uses NAB (National Australia Bank) as a case study, providing specific examples of their code of conduct policies and practices to illustrate the application of these principles in a real-world context.

Code of conduct
A code of conduct refers to a set of rules and regulations that are to be followed by all the
members of an organization. All the employees of an organization belonging from the lower to
the higher posts must be able to understand and also follow the company codes throughout the
time period for which they are serving in the organization (Valentine, Hanson and Fleischman
2017). The importance of having a well-defined and easy to understand the code of conduct is
unavoidable in this modern day scenario. This is because, in order to survive in this modern
competitive world, organizations need to work hard and fulfill all the needs of the customers. To
do that the company must create proper employee coordination. Thus the code of conduct helps
in building compliance.
Enforcing a code of conduct helps the organizations to follow an employee-centric
approach and achieve a kind of uniformity in the organization (Mitonga-Monga, Flotman and
Cilliers 2016). The code of conduct should be checked To safeguard the rights of all employees
within the organization, and protect them from acts of exploitation and discrimination., regulated
and updated so that all the employees can get an equal amount of rights within the organization.
This helps the management to safeguard their employees from exploitation and discrimination.
Some of the companies like Wesfarmers, Woolworths have a good code of conduct that helps in
creating a proper work culture. NAB or the National Australia Bank is one among the
distinguished organizations that follow a well-organized code of conduct (Nab.com.au. 2019).
Discrimination

Discrimination is the act of differentiating between individuals based on aspects like
physical or mental disabilities, racial grounds, ethnicity socioeconomic status. There is a
common instance of inequality in the salary to the male and the female employees' on grounds of
gender (Pekareket al.2017).
The gender pay gap is becoming an important issue, as this points to the possibility of
gender-based workplace discrimination. Though a female employee might be of the same merit
and capability there is always an advantage available to the male employees.As Australia is a
land of diversity the workforce comprises of people coming from different ethnic backgrounds,
there are chances that employees belonging from the minority or the backward classes will be get
bullied at the hands of employees belonging from the majority or socially dominant group.
Discrimination can be direct, indirect organizational discriminations as well.
Direct discrimination is when any individual is subjected to discrimination for being the
members of any particular reserved or social group(Clark and Campbell 2000). A good example
can be the discrimination between the Romans or the Gypsies in the social places like bars and
pubs. In the year 2002, few Roman men were denied to be served at the bar as they belonged
from the Romanian background. The bar tender explained this behavior pointing towards their
codes where one principle read “We do not serve Roma”
Organizational discrimination happens when any organization or any industry as a whole
tries to abandon any particular group and not any individual (Bonchiet al. 2017). For an instance
the board of trustees of any organization can impellent a policy that will restrict the admission of
the Jewish students due to their religion.

Indirect discrimination is about discriminating against someone who happens to be from
Group X, but making it less obvious that this is the intention of the discriminator, by giving
another reason for the discrimination. Thus the company must include indigenous employment
and workplace diversity within their company code of conduct. There can be discrimination
done between the indigenous and nonindigenous employees. The employees belonging from
minority classes or from Aboriginal groups might be bullied by the other employees and denied
equal opportunities like promotions.
Discrimination: Code of conduct
 No employment position at NAB will be closed to candidates based on such
characteristics as age, gender, or bodily capability
 On the job training facilities are to be identified so that all the employees can get proper
training side by side while continuing their job and advertised equally to all members of
NAB
 NAB extends paid parental leave to both male and female employees so that they can
strike a proper balance between their personal and their professional lives
 NAB prides itself on showing an awareness of Indigenous cultural issues. NAB
employees will undertake Cultural Awareness Training on an annual basis.
 Translator services are to be made available to the customers of NAB
 Take care of the mental and the physical wellbeing of the employees through workplace
safety tools, training

 Employees have to show respect towards each other
 Any disputes or conflicts have to be resolved by following a right channel
 The recruitment or the hiring process must take place by following fair laws.
 The recruitment is to be done strictly on the basis of merit and performance. No special
or added advantage is to be given to any candidates.
 All employment opportunities will be internally advertised to all existing NAB staff
 Fair Works Act 2009 is to be initiated and followed throughout the organization
 No special advantage is to be given during internal recruitment and only the ablest and
deserving employee is to be given the post
 No differentiation is to be done between employees based on their gender, racial
grounds, social or cultural backgrounds, linguistic backgrounds or any other such aspects
 The company management has to make sure that equal opportunities are being given to
both the male and the female employees irrespective of their gender. The company will
strictly look after creating female friendly workforces environment.
 NAB prides itself upon creating a diverse workforce, and an inclusive working
environment. Employees should contribute to that environment by refraining from
derogatory jokes and comments that work to belittle or exclude fellow employees.

Exploitation
The term exploitation signifies subjecting someone to unfriendly and harsh situations in order
to get some works done (Charlesworth and Macdonald 2015).Exploitation means to take unfair
advantage of people. The act of exploitation is taking the undue advantage of the vulnerability of
some people. There can be two forms of exploitation that are structural and transactional.
Transactional exploitation is when a sweet shop pays fewer wages to the workers and makes
them work for long. Structured exploitation usually did when a certain set of advantage is given
to a certain group while neglecting another. Explotation can be harmful and also mutually
beneficial at times. Harmful exploitation is a kind of conversation or any kinds of actions that
can render the victim in a worse and painful position. For an instance a conversation with any
rape victim might render her worse off than what she was.
Sweatshop labor is one such aspect. The sweetshop labor theory shows the workplace
exploitation in a broader way. The term sweatshop labor refers to the act of employing many
workers of low skill and making them work for long hours with very low wages (Nadvi 2017).
However there is a debate over this aspect as the multinational companies appointing these
workers usually have a high profit. On account of this high profit they must be increasing the
wages of these workers. Thus this can be seen as an example of workplace exploitation. On the
other hand Schleper, Blome and Wuttke (2017) have argued that this can also be seen as a
beneficial exploitation. This is because these companies are still better than these that do not
outsource their income at all. They provide no benefit to the poor and the needy. All employees
are to be educated and made aware about workplace discrimination

 To ensure that the anti discrimination policies are being properly enforced and due follow
up is being taken.
 Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Act 1999, the Sex Discrimination Act,
the Racial Discrimination Act is to be followed.
 Proper contracts are to be signed between the company and the employees which will say
that none of the employees is to be fired without any proven grounds of crime.
 None of the employees should be made to overwork before or after their shift timings
Corruption
Corruption can be referred to as the dishonest and unfair activities that are often done by
employees working in an organization(Pekarek et al. 2017). The employees might get engaged in
some unethical or unfair means in order to make personal profits by cheating the company or the
company clients. Bribery is one such corrupt activity. Often the leaders or the company
managers do some unethical activities in exchange for huge money or any other kinds of
rewards. For instance some banking clients might want a loan for some unethical activity like
drug dealing. The bank managers might sanction the loan if they are bribed with a huge sum of
money. Extortion can also take place where some employees of the organization might tamper
with very important legal documents.
 All the employees including the leaders must adhere to the anti-bribery policy
 All the employees are to keep a proper, organized and error-free record of all the
important papers and legal documents that they are in charge of

 None of the employees can accept or give any gifts from, hospitality services or any other
facilities to and from any clients that breach the company policies
 Strict privacy and confidentially about the employees and about each and every business
decision has to be maintained.
Dishonest and fraudulent behavior
Dishonesty or fraudulent behavior in the workplaces mainly include theft, lying, giving
away company details to external sources and other such aspects. As per the opinion of
Samociuk and Iyer (2017), about 80 % of the dishonest or fraudulent activities are shown by the
employees. As far as the NAB is concerned the fraudulent activities might include tampering
with the debit and credit transactions of the clients. The dishonest employees might start stealing
from the client fund in order to make some personal gains. Apart from this the other kind of
fraudulent activity might include giving away the important bank credentials to external clients.
The code of conduct that must be used by the company are as follows
 Each and every stakeholder working in the company has to be responsible for their
actions and decisions
 Any market sensitive information must be immediately reported to the organization by
following the proper and the complete structure.

 None of the employees of NAB must disclose any crucial business information or the
internal information to any external parties
 None of the leaders, managers or departmental heads are to recruit employees on any
dishonest grounds like personal contacts, relations or others
Whistleblower protection
Whistleblowers are the special employees of an organization who help in finding out and
revealing the unethical activities that are going on within any organization(Saithibvongsa and
Shin 2019). For example, a departmental head trying to pass any unethical loans for illegal
activity. A whistleblower has to analyze this activity and report this straight to the company
headHowever, there are many bad impressions that people might have over the whistleblowers.
NAB has to recruit whistleblowers for every department as they are involved in huge
transactions globally. The chances of fraudulent activities are very high and they have to ensure
that none of their employees are engaging in any unethical activities. NAB has to provide
protection for the whistleblowers.
 Proper disclosure policies to be initiated which will prevent the unnoticed firing of the
whistleblowers from their jobs
 The employer or NAB has to create a log or entry system where they will record the
complaints and the works done by the whistleblower. This information can be later used
in the trail if any complaints are brought against the whistleblower
 The HR or the manager of the company must take initiative to stay in complete contact
with their whistleblowers to know about their activities. All the proceedings of

investigation must be documented so that the whistleblowers have a proper justification
of all their actions in self-defense.
 Proper security is to be given to the whistleblowers so that they get access to all the
resources without any issues
 None of the employees can harass or bully the whistleblowers in any way or create any
hindrance in the path of their works.
 None of the Whistle Blowers are to be threatened or abused verbally, mentally or
physically.
 None of the Whistleblowers are to be terminated on evidence less grounds.
Enforcement
Education and how people know about the code.
 All the employees irrespective of their posts or hierarchy must adhere to each and every
rule of the organization
 Employees failing to abide by the code of conduct will be subjected to huge penalties.
 Employees found guilty of any bribery will be denied of their upcoming 6 months’ salary
and will also have to compensate the entire amount from their personal accounts
 Employees or company leaders found tampering or guilty of extortion will be severely
punished. The punishment will be charged with lawsuits and imprisonment
 Penalties and punishments are to be entitled based on the severity of faults.

 Employees found threatening; bullying or harassing their co workers will be not only
given monetary penalization but it will be treated as a terminable offense.

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