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The ethics of speaking up as a graduate… what would you do?

Wednesday 17 February, 2021
by The Banking and Financial Services Oath

As a graduate that joined a retail banking institution six months ago, you’re currently on rotation in the Learning and Development (L&D) team. 

Working closely with the L&D manager on a project to launch a new CPD course to 5,000 frontline employees, your manager has asked you to go through the proposal which includes how it will be funded by the organisation. Your manager has received a verbal agreement from the customer service department that they will fund 80% of the course to be developed and rolled out to all frontline employees.

Your recent graduate training stated any kind of project funding should be agreed in writing and signed off by the senior leader responsible for that department.

When you ask your manager about the lack of written agreement, they tell you it’s the norm to go ahead with a project based on a verbal agreement – that a written agreement causes too much paperwork and a delay in the execution of projects. Your name features on this project proposal and will be presented to the leadership team in a couple of weeks.

What would you do?

  • Are you willing to go ahead based on the verbal agreement your manager has said is already in place?
  • If not, what would you do?

We challenge you to create a healthy discussion with your colleagues and post a comment below. You could even encourage them to consider taking The Banking and Financial Services Oath!

Please share your ethical dilemmas with us - we can post them anonymously. You can email your dilemmas to dilemma@bfso.org 

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

 

Comments

There are 1 comments for The ethics of speaking up as a graduate… what would you do?.

Re: The ethics of speaking up as a graduate… what would you do?

Friday 19 March, 2021
by Angela
I would probably go 'above and beyond' in preparing the project proposal documentation (as a new graduate eager to please) and include pages that perhaps are not normally included, one of which will be a summary of the funding arrangements for the project. This would clearly state how the project will be funded, incl. the 80% from the customer service department and wherever the other 20% is coming from.
And then, in order to show I've done my due diligence prior to presentation, I'd run the proposal by the stakeholders, one of which is the customer service manager, and in an email (so I have it in writing) ask them for their feedback/recommendations & approval of what's in the document.
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