Retail Food Group's Code of Conduct: Analysis and Recommendations

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of the code of conduct of Retail Food Group (RFG), examining various aspects of its ethical and governance practices. The analysis delves into specific areas such as discrimination, exploitation, corruption, dishonest and fraudulent behavior, whistle-blower protection, and enforcement mechanisms within the company. It discusses the historical context of RFG's code of conduct, highlighting issues arising from previous management practices, including instances of discrimination based on age, gender, and other factors, as well as exploitation of shareholders and employees. The report evaluates the impact of these practices on the company's reputation and financial performance. Furthermore, it assesses the company's efforts to address these issues through changes in leadership, implementation of ethical guidelines, and enforcement of regulations. The report also explores the role of whistle-blower protection and the importance of enforcement in maintaining ethical standards and preventing future liabilities. Overall, the analysis provides insights into RFG's journey toward establishing a robust ethical framework and ensuring sustainable business practices.

GOVERNANCE, ETHICS
AND
SUSTAINABILITY

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Code of conduct of Retail Food Group.......................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
The meaning of code of conduct is a set which includes rules which outlines the norms
which are social, religious, and also rules which are essential for an individual. The code of
conduct takes into account the values, standards, principles, and rules which are for the
behaviour of the individual which combine contribute towards main stakeholders welfare and
also respecting the rights of constituents which are affected by the operation of any organization.
In the present study Retail Food Group is taken, which takes into account Discrimination,
Exploitation, Corruption, Dishonest and Fraudulent Behaviour, Whistle blower Protection and
Enforcement which is discussed in detail(Park, J., Conca, K. and Finger, M. eds., 2016). Retail
food Group is a publicly listed company which is famous for coffee, pizza, beverages and food.
The Company was started in the year 1989 having its headquarter in Southport, Queensland.
Peter George is the Executive Chairman of the company. The company is spread over 1000 plus
locations in Australia and New Zealand(Amran, A., Lee, S.P. and Devi, S.S., 2016).
MAIN BODY
Code of conduct of Retail Food Group
Code of conduct of different companies are different based on different purposes of the
companies which depends upon lot of factors affecting the company for example the purpose of
code of conduct of Retail Food Group which is based in Australia is different from the other food
companies. The purpose of the Retail Food Group's code of conduct is to respect others, maintain
the integrity, leadership, honesty, teamwork, and accountability within the company in order to
achieve welfare of the stakeholders of the company and also welfare of people working in the
Retail Food Group with the objective of achieving the goal of the company(Aras, G. and
Crowther, D., 2016). The core or the main standards which are for the behaviour are acting
honestly with integrity, obeying the law, acting in the best standards for the welfare of the RFG,
maintaining corporate standards, etc. The code of conduct is explained below:
Discrimation
The business of the Retail Food Group was of market cap which is more than dollar
billion. The previous management of the company started vanishing the company. As per the
code of conduct of Discrimination, employees faced problem which is verbal and non-verbal,
physical, psychological, sexual or any kind of discrimination which is offensive towards the
employees by the employees or the manager and also towards the managers and can not be

tolerated any more(Ardichvili, A., 2016). The previous management used to discriminate the
employees of the company on the basis of the age of the employees, the gender of the
employees, citizenship of the employees and also the religion of the employees. This happened
because of the leadership style which was followed that is Autocratic Leadership, where always
the boss is being followed and not the employees. So the problem was whom to report if the
Boss is itself unethical then it is useless to report the problem faced the employees to the
boss(Saltaji, I.M., 2016). The problem can be solved by treating all the employee equally and
fairly, by giving all the employees of the organization to develop themselves equally without any
discrimination Here taking the example of Mr Peter George who was trying to resolve all the
previous issues by changing the culture in the company. Mr. George set a proper channel for
reporting any problem faced by the employees and changes were made in order to respect the
hard work, skill and talent the employees were having irrespective of any caste or gender or any
religion(Ashta, A. and Bush, M., 2016). Mr. George also started taking care of the employees by
taking care of the health of the employees.
Exploitation
The meaning of exploitation is to treat someone by unfair means in order to get benefit
from the work. Immense exploitation was there in the company because of the previous
management, where the franchises of the Retail Food Group were losing its value of the share
which went down drastically just because of scandal made by the former management. The
former engagement exploited the shareholders of the company by scandal the money invested by
them, There was all the time the shareholders were claiming I want my money back, The
company exploited us(Benn, S. and Dunphy, D., 2016). The reputation of the company was
declining day by day in Australia and even the company was considered as high risk model. This
was resulting in decrease in the customer day by day which happened due to exploitation by the
company of its shareholders. As per the point of view of employees also the management was
not at all taking care of the employees and making them work illegally without paying the
employees minimum wage rate and also employing them for more hours without paying the
extra amount for the extra work done by the employees. This resulted in disappointment of the
employees of the company and the employees complained this to the government and the
government took strict action against the RFG, which resulted in serious penalty on the

company. After the entrance of Mr. Peter George it started changing as one of the first work
done by him was sacking about 200 senior management of the company
(Cashore, B., Auld, G., Bernstein, S. and McDermott, C., 2016). Mr. George changed completely
the rules to avoid any scandal and also any exploitation by the employees by following the
minimum wage law and also paying the employees extra for the extra work done by the
employees.
Corruption
The meaning of corruption is to act contrary to the company or any organization where
the employee is working in, for the specific interest of the employee and personal benefit of them
which can be direct as well as indirect. Here in the RFG it is seen that the senior employees of
the company were providing insider information of the company to the outsides also the
franchises of the company were doing same by taking money from the information taker, which
resulted in fall in the value of the company as the competitors were knowing all the information
of the company. The senior managers were only concerned of the personal benefits of them and
not the benefit of the company(Crane, A. and et.al., 2016). This situation was corrected by
increasing the insider information security, by also increasing an eye towards anti money
laundering. Strong IT policies are now followed which decreased the corruption activities of the
employees of the RFG. But a lot of factors matters in the corruption activities such as employee's
responsibility such as understanding the policies of the company in order to ensure what is
corruption in the company. The employee must be transparent in the work and never ever should
accept any bribe. Employee must report if any corruption activity is happening to the manager
and should not follow the same process used by the corrupt employees for the corruption. As per
the employer's point of view the employer must made strict rules if the employee found being
corrupted, If there is any shortfall then the employer must make sound procedures in order to
detect the shortcomings(Fassin, Y. and Van Rossem, A., 2016).
Dishonest and fraudulent Behaviour
The meaning of fraud is dishonest activities which causes actual and also financial loss to
any person or entity in way of theft, concealment, providing falsifying information and improper
use of the information. Providing falsifying financial information to the company, dishonestly
presenting the misleading information which providing false financial performance to
stakeholders in order to grab investment of the stakeholders(French, P.A., 2016). In order to save

taxes the RFG did tax evasion by providing falsifying financial statements, in which the
organization was successful in saving the taxes but it was an illegal way which resulted in high
penalty towards the company and the company paid penalty which was much higher than the
taxes. In order to correct what is done by the company, the company must have presented fair
information to the tax authority and also have paid the taxes earlier. RFG must also have not
presented the misstated financial information to the stakeholders in order to grab more and more
funds instead they must have been thinking on long term basis and not short term basis. The RFG
must have followed the code of conduct of fair discloser. The company must have followed
proper ethics which include maintaining proper internal controls, honesty and integrity. In the
internal control must be followed in order to maintain the secrecy of the information. Honesty
must be followed in order to disclose fair financial information to the users and integrity must be
followed in order to avoid any deviation which changes the employees perspective for the
personal gain(Kock, C.J., Santaló, J. and Diestre, L., 2016).
Whistle Blower Protections
Whistle blower is a kind of person which informs any kind of illegal information to the
management. The term whistle means alert about any bad situation which is about to come. The
information along with illegal can be unethical, not correct as per the company's point of view.
Whistle blower can act on various activities of the company such as fraud, violation of policies
of the company, threatening the employees of the RFG etc. In the present case it is seen that the
company's information is shared to the competitors of the company in against of few money in
the form of bribe. This can be corrected if the whistle-blower have taken action against it. The
blowing of the whistle can be done internally as well as externally(Kolk, A., 2016). Internally the
employee must have provided the information to the immediate boss but if the immediate boss is
also corrupt then the information must have been provided using the external medium by
providing information to senior management. Sometimes the whistle-blower can also be
incapable of conveying the message properly. So the RFG must appoint a person whose role is of
conveying the information which is provided by the accused party to the competitor. It can aslo
happen as well that the whistle-blower is also included in taking the bribe from the competitor so
the RFG can correct it by keeping eye on the whistle-blower. In the RFG there was also scandals
which was done by the old employees of the company and such scandals if whistle-blower have
reacted on it could be stoped(Manzini, E., 2016).

Enforcement
The meaning of enforcement is the act by which law, rule and obligation can be
compelled. In a way enforcement leads to following the rule and regulations by the RFG which
will help the company by preventing the company from future liability. There is a complete
influence of the government in the Enforcement. The enforcement of the law can lead to
maximization of the social benefits of the company and also it will lead to protection of the
public interest. Here in the RFG the company did not follow the law of minimum wage and also
health and safety law, the company also fails to comply the company law. Which ultimately
resulted in penalty imposed by the government on the company which was again very high. Such
huge mistake can never be happened if prevention measure have been taken earlier. The
prevention measures could be following the code of conducts and the ethics of the company. It
also spoiled the image of the company and also the trust of the company by the employees of the
company flattered just because of non-compliance of the laws by the company. If the laws and
regulation have been followed earlier this could not be happened. There are also two types of
enforcement which includes private enforcement and public enforcement. In the private
enforcement the company has to follow the laws of the individual entity and in the public
enforcement the company has to follow government laws. Here in the company if have followed
both of the enforcement would have resulted in avoidance of any liability and also the reputation
of the company would also have been adversely affected (The code of conduct and its
importance,2019[online])

CONCLUSION
As per the above study it is concluded that each and every business must follow the rules
and regulation or the code of conduct in order to avoid any legal actions. The following of the
code of conduct effectively can bring effective and efficient result to the company. The RFG
must follow the ethics and take proper action against the old employees, which is already been
taken by Mr. George which is a great step.
Illustration 1: The code of conduct and its
importance
(Source:The code of conduct and its
importance,2019)

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Online
The code of conduct and its importance.2019[online]. Available
through<https://www.prbx.com/sustainability/prbx-code-of-conduct-1300x800/>