Business Integrity And Ethics Training Will Get Head Start

What’s the right age to start formal training about business integrity and ethics?

Tenth grade - high school sophomores - is the target of a new Better Business Bureau program called “Are You Within Reason?”

“We are trying to get 10th grade classes involved at all 84 public and private high schools in our Eastern Washington service area,” said Jan Quintrall, president of the BBB of the Inland Northwest.

Why 15- and 16-year-olds? “They are old enough to have faced some ethical decisions and young enough not to know everything,” she said.

The area BBB is customizing a program developed by the Des Moines, Iowa, BBB to target large businesses. “We’ve taken it to a different level, bringing in more consumer issues,” Quintrall said.

Targeting schools here, Quintrall said, “gets us out in the community and in front of kids.”

“There is no better way to live ethics and integrity than to teach it,” she said. BBB consumer counselor Jackie Domit will coordinate staff and volunteer trainers. Quintrall said about 10 business owners and others have volunteered so far, and more are needed.

Programs typically use role-play scenarios that raise ethical issues.

One such scenario: You are buying a car. When you look closely at the contract you notice a substantial error of a few thousand dollars - in your favor. Do you call it to the seller’s attention?

Quintrall said groups of five to seven students - playing various roles, such as the car buyer, the salesman, the dealer - will discuss the scenario. The trainer returns to class later to lead discussion.

“It gets the kids to think about ethics from different perspectives,” she said. “A lot of the problems we (the BBB) deal with involve integrity on one side or the other.”

The idea is to help students learn about value-based decisions. Basically, she said, “Can you look at yourself in the mirror the next day?” and be comfortable with the choice.

The BBB’s program supports the effort announced several weeks ago by Gonzaga University President the Rev. Robert Spitzer to raise awareness of business ethics throughout the area.

A second part of the BBB initiative is training GU grad students to take the program into small businesses.

In a nice recycling of resources, the BBB program is partly funded with a $30,000 grant from the Washington Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division. Quintrall said the funding source is “money seized from scam artists.”

On another issue, Quintrall said the response was “overwhelmingly positive” to the BBB’s decision to name businesses the agency said did not respond to consumer complaints. The list, updated monthly, is online at www.Spokane.bbb.org.

She said the day after the list was announced, phone lines in the BBB office rang constantly. “By 3 p.m., we were shell-shocked,” she said.

Their tally: 400 positive calls on the BBB strategy, 5 negative and “maybe two threatened lawsuits.”

Said Quintrall: “We’re just going to get more aggressive in holding the marketplace accountable to consumers.”

Topic two: commute trip reduction (CTR).

Sacred Heart Medical Center and the Washington state Department of Transportation’s Eastern Regional Office recently were honored for their continued improvement in persuading employees to get to work other than in one-person vehicles.

The state CTR program involves employers with 100 or more staffers whose schedules require travel during peak morning and afternoon traffic hours. Goals are to cut congestion, improve air quality and reduce use of petroleum fuels.

Employers set a baseline in 1993 for vehicle miles traveled and single-occupant vehicles. Using techniques such as carpooling, bus transit, work-at-home alternatives, compressed work week scheduling and bike- or walk-to-work programs, companies were to cut vehicle miles and one-person vehicles - by 15 percent in 1995, 20 percent in 1997 and 25 percent in 1999.

After hearing business sector concerns, the Legislature delayed until 2005 the goal of a 35 percent reduction from baseline levels.

Melanie Rose, who coordinates the CTR program for Spokane County, said 95 Spokane employers participate, reaching about 25 percent of Spokane’s work force. She said 78 companies were measured in 1999, with 40 achieving their goals. “Any time you try to change people’s habits it takes patience,” Rose said.

Rose said progress has been steady. Spokane County has been among the state’s best CTR performers. Despite Seattle’s traffic congestion, she said, 19 municipalities in King County have separate CTR ordinances, complicating overall organization of the program. Spokane County has the only CTR ordinance here, she said, and, “Spokane is just a big small town.”

She praised CTR coordinators Lori Barschig at Sacred Heart (3,800 employees) and Jana Augenstine at DOT (230 employees) plus the top-management support of each employer in helping the program succeed.

Rose noted, however, that despite its best efforts, even Sacred Heart fell just short of its 25 percent reduction goal.

And a big challenge looms. Loss of motor vehicle tax funding after adoption of Initiative 695 may cut bus service alternatives for area employees. The measure also eliminated some state funding to fight air pollution. For the Spokane County agency, that means $323,000 for the biennium, which is most of its budget.

Hoping funding alternatives will be found, Rose said, “You don’t want all of those people to get back in their cars and drive.”