For many years, Ford has had in place a comprehensive set of policies, directives and standards that communicate to employees worldwide our expectations relative to legal and internal Company requirements. In addition, we conduct a range of training programs to provide employees with in-depth information about what these standards mean in practice.
Policy Letters and Directives
Policy Letters establish a framework of broad, basic principles within which the Company conducts its business globally. Corporate Directives typically deal with narrower topics than Policy Letters and may only apply to a particular segment of the business or an organization and, therefore, are often more limited than Policy Letters in their applicability.
In 2006, Ford strengthened its Corporate Directives process so that all Directives, like Policy Letters, are now signed by the Company's CEO. In the past, Directives could be signed by a Company Officer. All new Policy Letters and Directives must be agreed to by the Company's top vice presidents before getting CEO approval.
In addition to Policy Letters and Directives, numerous descriptions of business practices, handbooks and statements of business standards govern the conduct of employees globally.
Communicating Expectations to Employees
Our Standards of Corporate Conduct employee handbook is currently being updated to include a more global focus. The handbook is a compilation of the most important and relevant policies, directives and standards for Ford employees, covering a broad range of topics from ethics to diversity to environment, health and safety. The updated handbook, which will be translated into as many as a dozen languages, will be issued to all employees in 2007.
To support the release of the updated handbook, we will roll out a new mandatory training course in 2008 for our global employees and other targeted personnel. The program will focus on ethics, conflicts of interest, gifts and favors – topics on which we have long provided employee training – as well as additional issues that have global applicability.
To help our employees worldwide understand and access resources that enable responsible behavior and enhance regulatory compliance, we have also implemented additional legal-awareness trainings covering selected substantive topics.
In addition, our nonmanufacturing workforce and contract personnel are regularly reminded of their responsibility to report any known or suspected violation of the law or Company policy. There are many different ways for individuals to report known or suspected violations, including direct communications to a member of one of the control groups – such as the General Auditors Office or the Office of the General Counsel – as well as telephone tip lines in many regions, email and Company intranet sites.
