Sarbanes Oxley

catherinetnc · February 2005

Sorry to bring up such a distasteful subject, but I keep getting mail indicating that private companies have to comply with the SOX guidelines for ethics training (for EVERY employee), audit comittees, codes of ethics, etc.

Anyone have any insight into this horrible nightmare?

Thanks-
Catherine

Geno · February 2005

Catherine,

First of all yes, private companies will have compliance issues with Sarbanes-Oxley (SO) -- even non-profits. Take some comfort in the fact that we are all on the learning curve with you on this one. Our early take on SO is that it is the employees (and non-employee, e.g., board,audit committee members etc.) whose work product has has any influence (large or small) on the financial reporting of the orgainzation that will be in need of training. This might be a good one to invest a few education dollars in by attending a quality seminar in order to get a well rounded feel for SO's impact on your organization. But gee, can't you push this off onto Legal or Finance? LOL

Geno

Don D · February 2005

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 02-07-05 AT 02:53PM (CST)[/font][br][br]I not only have insight on this "horrible nightmare", I have two shelves of a rather large bookshelf dedicated entirely to Sarbox, as we affectionately call it in our corporation. Although we have had a strong ethics requirement and training program internally for many years, Sarbox does require this of all employees on an annual basis. The ethics requirements of Sarbox, which are actually the bottom line meat of the legislation, drives ethics down to the lowest level of a corporation and there is a mandate that all employees know and understand not only their obligation and accountability but also understand clearly their right to report to an offsite ethics toll free hotline.

Among the burdens of this legislation is the following: Our corporate accounting auditors have spent over 14 days at this facility in the past year and a half in what they call 'segregation of duties' in HR. Meaning, Of the three of us in HR, no two of us can share duties. In other words, the person who sets up an employee in the HRIS system cannot access payroll screens. I can review the HRIS screens but cannot edit them (and I love that!). The person who tracks Kronos hours, cannot access the HRIS screens at all.

And these fourteen days were just for HR. The tentacles of Sarbanes-Oxley reach into every pocket and corner of every publicly traded company.

BUCKLE UP!

CRS8383 · February 2005

The training piece really wasn't all that bad. We diid this this alot of direct mail and small meetings with groups of employees. For all of our salaried staff we used an online training program and for our managers there was a second online training program. But the part of SOX I love the most is the Ethics hotline that employees can call and make complaints to with or without leaving their name. This is so much fun. Everyone of the complaints must be investigated and responded to and 98% of them have nothing to do with ethics.

Have fun. Let us know if you need more help.

Don D · February 2005

The last four "ethics violations" I have had to investigate involved: Someone complaining that her stool was removed from the workplace and she has a bad knee; Someone complaining that he had followed our job bid procedure and was not awarded the job; A complaint that a manager had remarked that someone needed to lose 100 pounds; and having to work overtime.

Brad Forrister · February 2005

One escape clause: Sarbanes-Oxley generally applies only to publicly traded companies.

Brad Forrister
VP/Content
M. Lee Smith Publishers

Sarbanes Oxley

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