By Blandine CORDIER-PALASSE and Angélique BUDIN, Revue RH&M
Does your company have sales in excess of €100 million and more than 500 employees? Then the Sapin 2 Act applies to you.
What does the law say?
The Sapin 2 Act relates to transparency, the fight against corruption and the modernisation of economic life. Its aim is to bring French legislation up to the best European and international standards by
in the fight against corruption. On the model of the American FCPA or the UK Bribery Act, companies and their directors must adopt a plan of preventive measures against the risks of corruption or influence peddling.
HR, Why are you so concerned?
It is your responsibility to put in place "effective" measures to prevent and detect such incidents by :
1/ Adopting a code of conduct outlining prohibited behaviour and disciplinary sanctions
2/ Deploying an internal alert system
3/ Training all the company's stakeholders.
If they fail to do so, companies will be liable to criminal penalties.
It's real change management - evolving with the stick and the carrot
Secondly, HR, you are an essential cog in this performance management system. In particular, it must permeate and permeate every pore of the company. This involves : Data screening right from recruitment. The aim from now on is to really know who is joining the organisation, especially in high-level and/or strategic, sensitive positions.
Defining ethics and compliance objectives. In order to ensure that managers, and in turn their teams, have assimilated the codes of ethics and good conduct and are involved in their day-to-day work.
Raising awareness and training managers and all functional and operational employees, in France and abroad. New employees are also included.
- It's a goal for managers
- This is an obligation for employees.
In this way, for example, you can validate the role model role of managers. They themselves must be exemplary in embodying and spreading this compliance culture.
This change management: An opportunity to strengthen your key role...
...thanks to close cooperation with the legal and compliance departments, which are heavily involved in setting up, implementing and monitoring the plan. The compliance officer will have to tailor the plan to the company's business, culture, financial and non-financial risks and, above all, reinforce or even instil a culture of ethics. This is a crucial issue for companies - as the debacles of Enron and, more recently, VW clearly demonstrate - and HR has a fundamental role to play with a long-term vision.
We work with listed and unlisted groups, and in particular HR departments, on these issues and are available to advise you and recruit the right people with the right backgrounds to set up, roll out and monitor an efficient and appropriate compliance programme alongside you.
BLANDINE CORDIER-PALASSE AND ANGÉLIQUE BUDIN are partners in BCP Executive Search, a human strategy consultancy and leader in the recruitment of compliance, legal, risk and other "strategic protection" functions for companies. Blandine Cordier-Palasse is also the founder and Vice-Chairwoman of the Cercle De la Compliance.
