INSTRUCTIONS FOR USING THESE CASES

To use Cases for Ethics Training effectively as part of an ethics training program, a company should select a target audience and a knowledgeable facilitator. This allows the facilitator to focus the program on those issues that are the most meaningful to the target audience.

The Facilitator's Role

The facilitator selected to lead the training session should be knowledgeable about your company's code of ethics and compliance with federal procurement laws and procedures. The participation of senior management as ethics training facilitators is one way to demonstrate your senior management's personal commitment to, and support of, the core values and principles contained in your company's code of ethics.

Prior to conducting a training program using this tape, the facilitator should be familiar with the case study or studies to be presented. To assist the facilitator, a script of each case study is provided in the last section of this manual. While becoming familiar with the case studies, the facilitator should consider how each of the scenarios is relevant to the training program's targeted audience. The facilitator also should prepare to present the company's position or rules on the issues raised by each scenario. Finally, the facilitator should decide whether to present all three case studies in one training session, or to present them individually during three different sessions.

To conduct the training session, the facilitator should distribute and briefly discuss your company's code of ethics. The facilitator should remind the audience that ethics training is important to your company's reputation and competitive standing in the government contracting industry and that the company depends on each member of the audience upholding the ethical values and principles contained in the company's code of ethics. The facilitator should recognize that everyone strives to perform his or her duties with integrity and pride, but ethics training is necessary because situations testing an employee's and company's commitment to ethical values and principles are common occurrences in today's competitive environment. Also, the facilitator should emphasize that in such a complex regulatory environment, employees with the best intentions may inadvertently violate company policy or the law simply out of ignorance.

Next, the facilitator should introduce and show the case studies. At the conclusion of each case study, the facilitator should stop the tape and lead a discussion about the issues raised by the case study. The facilitator should encourage each employee to participate actively in the training session and to ask questions or make observations throughout the training session. The employee should be made to feel as if his or her participation is a vital component of the training session.

To assist the facilitator in leading the discussion in an organized and systematic way, the next section of this manual contains a brief introduction and suggested discussion questions for each scenario, as well as comments regarding relevant ethics laws and regulations. If appropriate for a particular scenario, the facilitator also should prepare company specific discussion questions. At times, the open-ended question format used in this manual, while conducive to free discussion, can make it difficult for the facilitator to keep the group focused on the training objectives. Accordingly, the facilitator should have an understanding of what each question is designed to elicit, and tactfully keep the group's discussion moving forward.

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