Ethics and Compliance

As our company grows, we need to ensure that ethics and compliance remain the foundation of all our business practices around the world. Building on our brand promise, we developed an internal communication campaign to Go Further – The Right Way.

Ethics Advice at Our Fingertips

To help our employees do things the right way, we seek to provide them with the information they need, when and where they need it. To help us deliver on this promise, our Corporate Compliance Office is developing innovative training and communication tools that make compliance with corporate policy and the law as easy as possible.

One of these tools is a free mobile application, The Right Way, (pictured) which puts key compliance information at our employees’ fingertips. It provides answers to frequently asked questions, covering topics such as our human rights commitment, the signs of human trafficking, our stance against harassment and discrimination, and our strict policy against bribery and corruption. It also enables our people to contact the Compliance Office directly.

To make this new tool accessible and easy to use across our global workforce, it is now available in seven languages. It is also publicly available so that our suppliers and other business partners can use it to become more familiar with our ethical policies and practices.

We are also making the entire app – including the architecture and content – available as “open source” material for other companies and groups to build on.

Corporate Compliance Office

Our Corporate Compliance Office promotes a culture of compliance and ethics across our business. As part of Ford’s Office of the General Counsel, it works with many other areas in the company to translate our aspirations and high standards – formalized in company policies and reinforced by management – into action. Senior management and the Board of Directors’ Audit Committee oversee our compliance program.

Ethics and Compliance Training

Our Policy Letters and Directives formally establish expectations for our employees and others working on our behalf. The most important and relevant of these are incorporated into our Code of Conduct Handbook (pdf, 1.01MB). Available in 14 languages, this is our primary ethical guidance document.

To reinforce our compliance program, we run mandatory online training courses for our global non-manufacturing employees and other key personnel. The courses focus on risk areas such as bribery and corruption, conflicts of interest, protecting personal and company information, and Ford’s ethical culture.

We strive to offer materials that are useful, engaging and available when needed, and we’re continuously improving our online training courses to provide shorter, more frequent and more memorable training modules. For example, in an upcoming training course, we are teaming up with a professor from Harvard Business School to give a TED-Talk-style presentation about why good people sometimes engage in bad behavior. This will provide inspiring insight into how we can maintain our ethical culture at Ford.

Reporting Violations

Our compliance program encourages and facilitates the reporting of known or potential violations of the law, or our Policy Letters and Directives. Individuals can anonymously report such violations to the General Auditors’ Office, Human Resources or the Office of the General Counsel, using telephone hotlines or via email. A cross-functional committee reviews all allegations, oversees any investigations, and implements corrective or disciplinary actions.

Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption

Although our many facilities around the world need to comply with a wide range of national laws and governmental enforcement practices, it’s essential that we maintain the highest standards wherever we operate. To ensure that we don’t accept local norms if they fall below our own standards, we have:

Crafted clear bribery and corruption policies, and provided procedures for reporting breaches of law or policy
Strengthened the anti-bribery and anti-corruption elements of our Global Terms & Conditions (and other contracts) for our suppliers
Continued to train individuals who may encounter bribery or corruption issues in their work
Assessed all our operations for risks related to bribery and corruption

Case Study

Ford Named One of World’s Most Ethical Companies^®

As business ethics increasingly affect customers and their purchase decisions, we were proud to be named to the 2017 World’s Most Ethical Companies^® list by the Ethisphere Institute in March 2017. Ethisphere Institute rates companies across five categories: ethics and compliance, corporate citizenship and responsibilities, culture of ethics, governance and leadership, and reputation.

This marks the eighth consecutive year that we have received the accolade. The honor is a reflection of Ford’s core values, and demonstrates to our customers what we stand for as a company.

In addition, we have been recognized by several other third-party organizations for our efforts during 2016. Forbes named Ford to its The Just 100: America’s Best Corporate Citizens and 2016 America’s Best Employer lists, and we scored 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.