Echo Investment strengthens its corporate culture and introduces the Code of Conduct which defines the company’s values and ethical norms required in its relations with employees, shareholders, local administration and communities. The company has also introduced a procedure for reporting irregularities, which promotes ethics in everyday work and provides the reporting persons with a sense of security.

The Code of Conducts organizes issues such as relations among employees and superiors or relations with business parties and other interested parties. It also defines the code of conduct in difficult situations such as a conflict of interest, a suspicion of irregularities, a corruption proposal or working with co-operators of bad reputation. “Echo Investment has made the best name for itself on the market for the last 20 years. We highly appreciate good reputation so we came to a conclusion that it was time to consolidate our values in a suitable document. The principles included in the Code of Conduct apply to each employee of Echo Investment – regardless of their seniority, the position held and the level of responsibility. We want Echo Investment to be perceived as stable and transparent organisation and attractive employer” emphasizes Nicklas Lindberg, president of Echo Investment. Apart from the protection of the company"s reputation, the development of corporate culture and the promotion of business ethics generate more benefits. Authors of the IBE Ethics at Work Survey have observed that business ethics has become an increasingly important criterion in the company"s evaluation and it gained a particular significance after the financial crisis of 2008. The introduction of a conduct policy affects the company"s long-term value and allows it to deal with crisis situations easier, it also increases its attractiveness as an employer, a potential investment, a partner or a supplier. “Illegal activities could be difficult to detect but their legal assessment leaves no doubts. Unethical activities, even if they do not infringe the law, could generate a high risk and losses for the company: from the reputation risk, which results in a decrease of revenue, to unfriendly atmosphere at work, which results in the best people leaving the company and new talents being hard to source. Thus companies introduce ethic systems hoping that they will become a more desirable employer thanks to increasing their organizational culture,” says Robert Sroka, PhD, expert on business ethics compliance at the EY consultancy. According to a survey of the Employers of Poland, ICAN Institute (the issuer of Harvard Business Review Polska) and Crido Taxand, out of 100 companies with the highest revenue in Poland, 51 have their ethical codes or codes of conduct and 35 have generated tools which provide for the reporting of the behaviour which is illegal or incongruent with the provisions of the code. However, as a rule, the smaller the company, the less frequent such documents are. Echo Investment has also implemented procedures of irregularity reporting and their examination. They make it possible for employees to anonymously report unethical or illegal activities observed, which infringe the law, internal regulations or principles of social co-existence.