Governance and Integrity
Leadership and Governance
- Boards and Executive Teams are increasingly challenging their assurance and integrity functions to strengthen brand protection, through effective governance, integrity and misconduct management. Chief assurance officers are being request to demonstrate the value that brand management adds to an organisation's reputation, as well as identifying the opportunities that strong assurance management brings. Chief conduct and risk officers are under ever-more scrutiny to ensure the identification, assessment and management of risk, across conduct, integrity, governance and strategy, serves to strengthen the organisation's Social and Communities engagement capability.
Independent Oversight Of Culture, Integrity & Misconduct Management
Harvard Advisory Solutions recognises that an organisation’s reputation is priceless, takes years to establish, relies on the support of communities to protect, requires the trust of community members to engage, and… can be lost in a heartbeat. Over the years, we’ve assisted numerous organisations both public and private in strengthening their oversight of social governance, culture, integrity and misconduct management capability, through large and complex independent reviews and recommendations management/implementation.
- Independent Governance and Culture Reviews: We work with organisations in the provision of independent governance, culture, integrity and misconduct reviews, in response to serious and complex incidents of misconduct. We strengthen an organisation's ability to manage serious and far-ranging misconduct matters. In the past we've provided advisory services to private and public sector organisations, following the identification of sexual abuse of staff members at accommodation centres. We have also assisted in the review of the Terms of Reference and the role of Chairperson for the Indigenous Affairs Advisory Council for a major private organisation, following a wide-ranging incident of operational misconduct that resulted in dismissal of the CEO and wide social community backlash.
- Misconduct investigation and reporting: Harvard Advisory Solutions has the capacity to confidentially lead organisational misconduct reviews for matters across workplace health and safety, integrity, whistle blowing, misuse of force, sexual misconduct, and compromise of social community values.
- Anonymous reporting: We can assist organisations through developing anonymous reporting capabilities, as well as organisational change, to encourage employees, participants, patients and members of the public, to safely and confidently report incidents of misconduct.
- Conduct: Assess and grow the beliefs, value systems, conduct and traditions that strengthen risk culture and its alignment with strategy in practice. We encourage business’ to embrace change and be open to new frontiers, but to take such steps within a defined health-based risk taking culture, protected by defined boundaries and clear limits to authority. In this manner, culture becomes a set of applied beliefs, traditions and values, which the business advocates internally, and displays externally. Transparency is key.
- Corporate governance: Harvard Advisory Solutions can coach the Board’s ability to ensure effective oversight of key risks, its links back to business strategy, as well as the overall structure of governance.
- Strategic mindset: Key industry trends, social media disruptors, or competitor positioning, can all adversely impact market dominance, and long-term sustainability. Conversely, they can also be triggers for assessing opportunity value.
- Brand risk: The degree to which a firm is reliant on its brand determines the degree of maturity of its social media engagement strategy. We can assist reviewing a firm’s social media reputation, as well as the level of engagement it has with social media, to leverage best market positioning.
- Business continuity post crisis: Being ready for a crisis depends upon identifying the most likely set of crisis relevant to the business, and is dependent upon having a full understanding of the operating context and interdependencies of the business. Harvard Advisory Solutions will sit with key Executive Leadership Team members to understand the critical dependencies upon which the business relies. Be it securing supply chains, preventing workplace incidents, security of IT and Communications systems, emergency readiness, safety in design engineering reviews, or any other incident deemed plausible for the business, we will work with you to develop strategies that will minimise the likelihood of a crisis occurring, and/or, minimise the consequences therefrom.
Risk Taking Culture
- Established culture depends upon repeated processes. A healthy risk culture is mature in decision making, and has purpose behind every decision. This is supported by APRA’s stance on the important role risk culture plays in meeting regulatory requirements. But we go a step beyond this.
- Part of the overall operating rhythm: We recognise that the business practices displayed on a daily basis, are part of the overall operating rhythm of that organisation. This tone is set from the CEO, and at times by the Board, ideally with both being aligned. We understand that the business operating culture is a symptom of the degree to which risk boundaries have been clearly articulated, and embedded.
- Controlled risk taking: We help an organisation to create a blame-free operating environment. We also encourage practices that govern a matured/intelligent approach to risk decision-making. A governance structure in place that promotes risk taking, but within a controlled environment, with clear limits to authority. In this manner, the business fosters a decision-making process that allows encourages creativity, but fosters creativity within safe boundaries. Only in this manner can executing strategy go 'hand-in-glove' with managing risk.
Appetite
Scrutiny from a regulator – displayed through legislation, cabinet papers, policies, parliamentary/media briefings – gives an insight into the operating environment a business finds itself in. These forums also provide hints as to industry risk appetites, and the flow-on effect of an industry’s risk appetite onto the organisation’s appetite to take on new risk. A regulator may suggest the revision of risk culture as a starting solution for any deficiencies in risk governance, and in doing so, an organisation’s risk appetite is scrutinised. We can assist a business to develop sound risk appetite governance frameworks.
- Industry standards: We can assess your business’ standing against industry consensus as to the core understandings behind risk appetite, regulatory scrutiny, and risk governance.
- Best practice: So much of an organisation’s risk appetite is governed by the regulations in which it operates. We sit with the Board, CEO, and key Executive Leadership Team members, to review the business’ current sweet of investments and how these have performed. This is then complimented by a review of planned future operations/projects, and the regulatory environment in which the business operates, to form a holistic/matured perspective on current ability to tolerate existing risk, versus appetite to take on new strategies.
- Regulator trending: A genuine risk appetite governance framework will answer the tough questions a regulator poses, whilst giving insight to the business of how risk appetite may change over time based on regulator trends.
Strategy
We can assist in reviewing the way your organisation relates risk decision-making back to strategy, to highlight the customer’s real needs, and building the capacity to respond.
- Maturity assessment: A purpose-built structure is followed when assessing the relative maturity level of the risk management function, its processes, as well as the degree to which it is embedded into existing corporate, operations, and/or projects governance frameworks.
- Risk appetite development: So much of an organisation’s risk appetite is governed by the regulations in which it operates. We sit with the Board and CEO, and key Executive Leadership Team members, to understand the business’s current sweet of investments, how these investments have performed, planned future operations/projects, as well as the regulatory environment in which the business operates. Taking a holistic view of these, enables the business to formulate a matured assessment on its current ability to tolerating existing risk, versus its appetite to take on new strategies.
- Role clarity: Purposeful decision making rests upon each team member understanding the limits within which to operate, whilst having the freedom to be creative within defined boundaries. We help team members to understand their roles/responsibilities as regards managing risk, but we do so, promoting a solid governance structure for risk/reward assessment. In this manner, decision-making becomes clearer and streamlined.
- Decision-making and strategy: Risk impacts every facet of a business, from its operations, to major projects, to corporate governance. We develop a business’s capacity to view risks across its portfolio of service lines. Key risk trends become easier to identify, across corporate, operations, service enablement support functions, and major projects. These trends can be assessed against strategy, as well as inform how strategy may need to be varied in changing operating environments. Remember, there is a clear difference between:
Business Process Optimisation (BPO)
Companies are endlessly searching for ways to increase process efficiency, whilst protecting critical business processes. Being first-to-market isn’t necessarily wise, if it comes at the cost of competitiveness, quality and customer focus. Firms can be both sustainable as well as process efficient through combining the leading project management methodologies with lean principles, to identify pathways for process optimisation, supported by methodical change management leadership.