Talk the Talk
“We hold ourselves to the highest professional standards of ethical work practice, integrity, objectivity competency, and confidentiality. Ethical work practice is a cornerstone of the firm. We perform our entire audit related tasks and duties with integrity, establishing trust and providing the basis for reliance on our judgment by both clients and suppliers. Our work exhibits the highest level of professional balanced objectivity in gathering, evaluating, and communicating information about the audit or process we are examining. We perform our work with the utmost concern for confidentiality and are prudent with the use of information and protection of the information acquired through high levels of encryption password, and electronic firewalls. We provide the confidentiality necessary for the work we do through non-disclosure agreements with both clients and even suppliers. Our management and audit staff realize the relationship you have with your suppliers is “our clients” and we have the highest respect for that relationship. Enabling clients to change the future one contractual relationship at a time is more than just a tagline, it’s how we conduct our work for you.“
“ In a world focused on short-term results, cutting corners, and rationalizing aberrant behavior, it can be uncomfortable to even talk about company ethics, Most firms declare their ethics as a bullet on a “values” web page. Many excuse their actual ethically challenged behavior as “within industry practices tolerance”, “everybody does it”, or “if I don’t do it, I will be fired”. Everyone hears the speeches about “doing the right thing”, but saying it and doing it can be different things; it’s difficult to coach your peers, painful to discuss with your manager, suicidal to address with your owner.
If you really believe that “doing the right thing” is changing the identified issues and living every day in an ethical work environment is important to you, it might be time to step back and inspect your current auditor from top to bottom. If short term results continually override black and white ethical issues, perhaps it’s time to chose another firm.
“Every audit is important, every client is a partner, every auditor is a consultant, every supplier an associate”
Robert Herrod
Herrod & Associates
President