UNHCR’s Ethics Office gives people tools to make their own values-based decisions
This is the second in a two-part series about how the Ethics Office is evolving to meet the challenges facing UNHCR today.
By Amy Lynn Smith, Independent Writer + Strategist
What a difference a day makes. Well, actually, it’s been a journey of more than two years, but the UN Refugee Agency’s (UNHCR) Ethics Office has been undergoing a significant transformation, day by day. And every day, more and more of UNHCR’s people are engaged in their own ethical decision-making.
That’s because the Ethics Office has shifted its focus from reactive to proactive, experimenting with creative solutions to educate and motivate UNHCR’s people in making their own best decisions, for the good of the entire organization and the people of concern they work with.
Gone are the days of a reactive approach described in the first story in this series, although the Ethics Office will always serve as a resource to answer questions about UNHCR’s Code of Conduct or ethical dilemmas faced by personnel.
But today, the Ethics Office is taking a fresh approach, empowering UNHCR’s people with the tools they need to actively participate in ethical decision-making that centers around UNHCR’s values, which include integrity, professionalism, and respect for diversity and inclusion.
Where the Ethics Office is going
Rather than dictating ethics rules from on high, then leaving people to fend for themselves, the Ethics Office is working to create a dialogue among its team members and everyone across the organization. Over the last two years, the office has been experimenting with new strategies to encourage individuals to take responsibility for their own ethical behavior. Perhaps even more important, the Ethics team wants to make doing the right thing so natural that it’s like part of everyone’s DNA: It isn’t something you have to think about. It’s simply something you do.
“Two and a half years ago, when I spoke about values and ethics to senior management and the organization, I felt I was speaking in the desert — no one was really hearing it or thought it was a priority,” says Helmut Buss, Director, Ethics Office. “Now, with the #MeToo campaign and a number of considerable challenges of fraud and corruption cases coming to light, ‘values’ has become a normal word that is integrated in everything the organization is talking about. It’s become much more important.”
This includes open organization-wide conversations about responsible use of power and privilege, and more clarity on the expected attitudes and behavior that reflect UNHCR’s values. As result, the Ethics Office now feels more integrated into the organization’s everyday operations and priorities, no longer speaking in the desert.
“In a way, we don’t feel alone anymore — we’re more like the mothership,” Buss says, describing the new view of the Ethics Office as more central to UNHCR’s operations. “We’ve implemented some fantastic change initiatives and we want to continue positioning ethics as a strategic tool. We want to develop curiosity for ethics as a tool to help people make better decisions, to reflect more consciously about their behavior and the impact of the behavior, not just at work but also in their personal lives.”
In fact, says Victoire Bovet, former Project Associate, Ethics Office individuals are ultimately the key players in ethical decision-making and good behavior. “For them, it’s the task of daily reflection,” she explains. “We offer a tool for people to always have ethical decision-making processes they can use before engaging in any situation.”
Reframing ethics as a mission-critical tool
Bovet is referring to a strategy the Ethics Office developed to embed ethical decision-making in the hearts and minds of everyone at UNHCR. Before making any decision: “Stop, pause, and reflect.” This initiative centers around UNHCR’s values and is a significant aspect of the 2019/2020 Code of Conduct Dialogue effort the office developed to support values-based decision-making — which means making decisions that are aligned with UNHCR’s values — that more robustly delivers on the UN and UNHCR mandates. The ultimate goal is for everyone across UNHCR to think before they act, to make sure every decision they make is in line with the organization’s values and Code of Conduct.
Redefining the emphasis of the Ethics Office from reactive to proactive is a culture shift — one that’s meant stepping outside their own comfort zone and asking UNHCR personnel to step outside of theirs — but one the team believes will yield positive results.
“The idea is not to dictate rules, but to engage in a dialogue with everyone to maneuver and navigate through difficult problem areas and decisions and ethical dilemmas,” Buss says, “and to use the muscle of ethical behavior every day. Rather than an annual event, like in the past, we’re trying to incorporate these ideas into people’s daily work, so in the end, it’s less about the Ethics Office and more about the story of ethics as a compass in times of uncertainty.”
Navigating ethical decisions, one step at a time
As part of making ethical thinking a daily activity, the Ethics team is facilitating dialogues — conversations that help everyone better understand how to handle an ethical issue should it arise. Through a series of workshops with numerous UNHCR stakeholders, the Ethics team has been developing a new Code of Conduct Dialogue brand that’s much more focused on individual dialogues, yet another experiment in approaching how ethics can be infused into everyday decisions.
“We’re trying to engage colleagues in more regular conversations about ethical dilemmas, on issues like use of social media or conflicts of interest,” Buss explains. “Rather than a Code of Conduct feel-good session once a year, it’s a more engaging way for people to say, ‘What does this mean for me? I’m in front of a difficult decision, so how can I navigate due diligence and if I’ve done that, the organization supports me.’”
This approach continues to tie back to the Code of Conduct, but more individual power to do the right thing is placed in the hands of individuals — rather than simply being directed from the top of the organization or the Ethics Office — because they’ve learned how to think through an ethical dilemma. The Ethics Office also hopes that empowering colleagues and giving them responsibility in this way will result in management supporting decisions that were taken following the ethical decision-making due diligence model. That would be an important step in supporting a culture that believes in learning from mistakes in case the decision proves to be erroneous after all.
It’s not only about individuals, either. For example, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), an issue the Ethics team is working on with UNHCR’s Innovation Service, has potential for organizational ethical risks that must be carefully examined. As AI and ML play a bigger role in decision-making at UNHCR, such as supporting recruiters in screening potential new talent, it’s essential that these systems are designed so bias can’t be programmed in, even inadvertently. It’s also important to examine the ethics of using these kinds of systems in the first place, even though humans are making the ultimate decisions with the assistance of machines.
Seeing stumbling blocks in the path and sending out an alert
Part of the Ethics Office’s evolution is creating what it describes as “Speak-Up Culture” — changing old mindsets about reporting unethical behavior, including that of people in leadership positions. The team wants UNHCR colleagues to feel comfortable speaking out when they think something may be unethical or even questionable.
“People need to trust the Ethics Office as a place where they can speak openly and then promote open dialogue and a Speak-Up Culture in their own environment,” Bovet says. “Inclusion, collaboration, and trust are some of the things we’re really emphasizing now.”
Buss adds that people need to feel strong enough to “call a cat a cat and to put our foot down and to say, ‘That unethical or uncivil behavior needs to be addressed,’” he says. This includes the Ethics Office itself, if someone in a position of high authority is acting unethically.
An ingrained reluctance to speak out — and the importance of changing that mindset — becomes even more important as UNHCR continues building new forms of relationships with outside partners, which might have ethical challenges of their own. Buss believes many large corporations have faced scandals because people stopped asking questions and speaking up, something the Ethics Office is determined won’t be the status quo at UNHCR.
Looking across the vista of ethics with fresh eyes
In order to drive this kind of culture change, the Ethics Office is exploring strategies to better explain its work and its goal of serving as a tool for individuals to make better ethical decisions, which includes investing more in communications and self-reflection on the impact of colleagues’ behaviors. As one example, the team has already developed some messages around “Stop, pause, and reflect.”
“It’s about the idea that everybody matters, everyone is involved, and mistakes are an opportunity for learning,” Buss explains. “We’re not role modeling a blaming, finger-pointing approach, but how everyone has a role in contributing to both a problem and a solution.”
The Ethics Office is working with other divisions and units, including Human Resources, Innovation, the Change Team and Internal Communications to develop better ways to get its message across globally in a variety of ways. In those efforts, the team is working with some 40 Code of Conduct Facilitators and Peer Advisors. Code of Conduct Facilitators — colleagues who are trained to facilitate Code of Conduct Dialogue sessions and to initiate and facilitate continuous dialogues on ethical dilemmas and values-based decision making. In addition, about 400 Peer Advisors are also working as ethics influencers and role models to support harmonious work environments, collaboration, and open dialogue.
In addition, the Ethics Office would like to decentralize its operation, which is headquartered in Geneva, to start placing Ethics Officers in selected field locations to provide more direct support to country operations. Buss admits that the project will take some time — again, it’s a brand-new way of approaching the work of the Ethics Office — but the team believes having ethics professionals on the ground is important to make sure that Code of Conduct Dialogues and promotion of values-based behavior can be tailored to the respective local realities and culture context.
What’s especially notable is the two-way dialogue created by the dialogue-based approach of engaging on ethical issues and behavior change. The Ethics Office and its network of Code of Conduct facilitators and Peer Advisors want to hear which ethical challenges UNHCR colleagues are facing and what their needs are in addressing them, so they feel heard, involved, and empowered speak up and act to find solutions.
“I think there’s an invitation here for everybody to individually explore what they can contribute to addressing problems and finding solution, even if that goes beyond specific job-descriptions,” Buss says.
“Our efforts go beyond the role of an Ethics Office,” he adds. “We feel passionate about helping colleagues to access their full potential, to feel encouraged to bring those skills and ideas to the table and enlarge spaces in UNHCR where those dialogues can happen. Ethics isn’t simply a set of Code of Conduct principles. It is a way of life, translating UNHCR values in everyday behavior and action and thus making a difference in the way we work among colleagues and in how we engage with partners, with refugees and people of concern.”
