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Fire safety campaign supported by O2 Airwave
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| Everyone who works for O2 is expected to act ethically at all times in their dealings with each other, with suppliers, with customers and with the wider public. |
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Our statement of our Business Principles – a copy of which is made available to all employees through leaflets and internal and external websites – makes it clear to everyone that no job is more important than protecting and enhancing the Company's reputation.
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As well as encouraging all employees to abide by the Business Principles, we also aim to persuade suppliers to embrace them by referring to them in our UK supplier contracts.
Our Business Principles cover the ethical behaviour we expect of everyone on issues such as competing fairly; accepting gifts and hospitality; delivering good value; health and safety; and fair and equal employment. They make it clear that we will not tolerate harassment in the workplace, do not make donations to political parties and aim to protect the confidentiality of employees and customers.
We measure the appropriateness of our Business Principles by benchmarking ourselves against leading UK and US companies. Our membership of both the Institute of Business Ethics and the General Counsel Round Table have given us invaluable insight into how well we are doing compared to others.
We have also modernised our training procedures to ensure our Business Principles are understood and adhered to across the business. Our online training modules have been updated and redesigned and cover a wide range of key policy areas, for instance, compliance training on competition law, marketing, health, safety and the environment. We aim to make these courses available to all employees during 2004/05.
A network of compliance officers now works across the business to track compliance with the Business Principles and helps managers to ensure that all employees complete their training requirements.
Our statement of Business Principles is supported by a confidential helpline and e-mail facility that enables people with concerns about the way we are operating to come forward in confidence. This is a UK regulatory requirement of the revised Combined Code C.3.4/Smith Guidance 4.8 introduced in July 2003. The US Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002 specifically requires SEC- registered companies to keep a register of complaints made by so-called 'whistle-blowers' and actions taken to investigate complaints.
Our own systems to monitor compliance with the Business Principles continue to be developed and we intend to use online tools more effectively to support this process, including a governance certificate submission tool for managers and a revised booklet of '10 top tips' to promote our training courses and alert employees to the confidential help facility.
Approaches to corporate governance are changing rapidly and we track these changes carefully. One of our main aims for 2004/05 is to make sure that compliance with our regulatory requirements and our commitments to Turnbull, Sarbanes-Oxley and our Business Principles are brought together under an overarching Internal Control framework comprising risk management, certification and internal- audit procedures.
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| OUR BUSINESSES |
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| Our business is growing but we want to make sure it continues to meet your needs. How do you think we can improve? > |
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| Have we done enough to explain how our technology works and about safety? |
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| Proportion of participants in the asthma trial who said they were satisfied with being able to manage their asthma symptoms by using the Xda by O2 for monitoring. |
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