Ethics Testing for work

[Pug]

Has anyone here had to pass an “ethics” test for their continuted employment? We have one annually. It must be done over the internet and you have to take a set minimum amount of time (which is kept secret from you) to read the training materials and take the test.

Can anyone share their experiences with this? Does anyone have good insight to share about what is the point? My experience was that it was rather pointless and not related to my work environment or job description. I found myself pretending to be someone else to successfully understand the materials. I don’t mean a more ethical person…I mean someone who’s job had some relation to the training materials.

Basically it WAS A BUMMER! Anyway, I ended up getting 100% but now have no clue what they wanted from me, which is sort of sad. I have all these questions now, about how it is really supposed to apply to my job. Since this is the morality forum, just how obligated am I to use ***unpaid ***time trying to find out the answers about how the rules apply to my actual job. It became clear to me that I was clueless about a number of topics as I took the test, although that is par for the course where I work. There is a secret rulebook of policies here, and they make you guess rather than tell you for some mysterious reason of their own. But I have fulfilled the letter of the law by passing and simultaneously taking an overly long and unnecessary amount of undisclosed time to do it.

BTW, the ethics test relates to LAW as it supposedly applies to me, so if I don’t understand the materials, I could unwittingly violate the law. This bugs me a lot.

Also, it was clear that I am obliged by law to nark on anything I see.

 

[thann]

My company requires ethics testing every year. The test comprises a Flash-based scenario and a series of questions. The questions are pretty easy.

I believe this is partially because of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which is being enforced after the Enron fiasco:

(Sarbanes-OXley Act) Administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2002, SOX regulates corporate financial records and provides penalties for their abuse. It defines the type of records that must be recorded and for how long. It also deals with falsification of data. Affecting data storage capacities and planning, SOX was enacted after the Enron and WorldCom scandals of the early 2000s. The bill was sponsored by Paul Sarbanes, Democratic Senator from Maryland and additionally authored before passage by Michael Oxley, Republican Senator from Ohio.

Don’t stew and fret over it. All large corporations require something similar.

'thann

 

[Liberian]

Pug,

I have to sign a statement of ethics every year to keep working at my company. If it bugs you, you don’t have to take the course … of course, you don’t have to work for your company either.

Since the test is a company requirement, presumably you should be taking it on company time. I’m not sure I understand your question about unpaid time.

• Liberian

 

[Pug]

I have to sign a statement of ethics every year to keep working at my company. If it bugs you, you don’t have to take the course … of course, you don’t have to work for your company either.

I know, so I took it. I’ll never get another job of similar caliber. I’m not fully abled.

Maybe my question about unapid time makes no sense, but to me it really feels unpaid. I am a contract worker, so there is no “time” to take it. In order to take it during company time, I’d have to not do my job or something. So I took the option of extending the length of my duties. Anyway, I decided to live with that.

But, it would be truly optional for me to try and figure out what their actual ethics laws are as they apply to me. It would represent extra hours of work for me. I’m not sure if I am morally obligated to figure out what those rules really are or not. As I said, it became clear from the materials that I do not know the information I really ought to know, and the materials did not provide any answers as they were really for a different type of worker than me.

The test itself took about 2 minutes. I’d have no issue with it if I could just take the test or sign a statement to be good. The requirement to keep my job seems more that I spend *time *in the training, oddly enough. I’m not sure they care all that much about the test itself, since I can just retake it.

This post is too long, so I know I can’t be thinking rationally about this. Sorry to torture you with this. I’d be more specific, but actually, I am not allowed to reveal the training materials to anyone, as far as I can tell, anyway. (of course, also can’t tell what was on the actual test, but I get that).

Thann is right, it seems to be the result of some law.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Maybe my question about unapid time makes no sense, but to me it really feels unpaid. I am a contract worker, so there is no “time” to take it. In order to take it during company time, I’d have to not do my job or something. So I took the option of extending the length of my duties. Anyway, I decided to live with that.

Pug,
I do not understand this comment.

If you are a contract worker and the company requries you to take this “test” then it is part of your job and you should do it on company time. If that means other parts of you job are not completed then it is up to the company to pay you for the extra time.

I do not understand the mindset that this requirement of the company that is contracting with you is not part of your job.