When internal audit and the board try to get a grasp of the prevailing corporate culture, they struggle to identify granular level indicators. Most of the focus of corporate culture reviews centres around: corporate policies, values as well as the annual ethics training but how much is just for show? A more in-depth analysis includes interviews with department heads or so called skip-level interviews to avoid filtering of information on corporate conduct, as much as possible.

Just for Show activities

What do we mean by just for show JFS activities?

Basically, these are activities that look like achieving their stated objectives but, in reality, they are incomplete and/or do not bring the intended benefits to the organization.

Let me give you two hypothetical examples of  just for show activities:

• HR conducts a detailed employee survey using an independent third-party service provider. So, it looks like HR has accomplished one of its yearly objectives. However, due to budget constraints, a detailed analysis of the results is not carried out and action plans are not initiated. So, the survey initiative looks good on the surface but no actual value is added to the firm.
• An organization commits to annual training for its employees to be in line with industry best practices as well as to comply with regulatory requirements. Even though staff’s professional development is promoted at the corporate level, actual approval of training courses is mainly driven by cost savings and potential for reimbursement. As a result, competition among the services providers gets distorted since quality becomes less of a consideration. Ultimately, professional development becomes a JFS activity due to the discrepancy between corporate values and the actual training selection/approval process.

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Have You encountered any “Just for Show” activities, before?

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