Part $2$: Professional setting

Business professionals often are required to complete training to adhere to the learning guidelines of their

organization, and often to maintain professional licensure $($professional trainings are sometimes referred

to as continuing professional education, or CPE$)$ or certification. Licensure and certification training and

qualifications exist for CPAs, actuaries, and various consultation areas of expertise and practice.

Licenses typically are granted by authoritative bodies, such as state agencies, and certifications can be

required by such authoritative bodies, as well as employers and clients. For certain consulting roles, the

market $($i$.$e$.,$ clients$)$ may require that certain certification requirements have been met in order to hire a

professional to perform a particular service $($e$.$g$.,$ certifications such as for Six Sigma; certifications for

various software packages, such as SAP, Oracle and ServiceNow; SCRUM certification; or a certified

cloud security professional$).$ In a professional setting, CPE training to maintain a license typically requires

meeting a minimum annual hour requirement, as well as taking courses that meet certain content or topic

guidelines. Like licenses, certifications also typically require updated training and testing from time to time

in order to maintain the certification. Given the nature of professional licenses and certifications, it is

virtually always the case that any resulting exam performance measurement is performed solely by the

individual $($i$.$e$.,$ no team testing or grading is allowed$).$ In completing the training, the professional might be

required to:

$$ Affirm compliance with the independent completion of the training

$$ Affirm attendance of the entire training

$$ Affirm attendance of only a portion of the training $($which typically results in less than full hours of

credit$)$

$$ Respond to questions during the training to verify that they were paying attention

$$ Individually complete questions $($take an exam$)$ at the conclusion of the training at a sufficient level,

demonstrating that they learned the material

$$ Maintain documentation of completed training for audit purposes $($e$.$g$.,$ by state licensing and

certification boards$)$

Professionals might have varying levels of interest and motivation in the different trainings that they take.

This could be based on whether the professional self$-$selects the training or whether the professional is

told or required to take the training. It also could be based on whether the subject matter is interesting

and relevant to that professional. Interest and motivation also can be affected by whether the professional

has already learned the subject matter and is$,$ therefore, not challenged by the training. The delivery

method of the training may not appeal to a professional$$s learning style. Also, interest and motivation

could be impacted by the length of time or timing of the training relative to the professional$$s schedule.

Ethics mindset $$ Case studies $$ Ethics in a learning environment $5$

$2021$ Ernst & Young Foundation $($US$).$ All Rights Reserved.

SCORE no$.11556-211$US$\_15$

You are responsible for oversight of ethics for learning in your organization. Consequently, the reasons

why some may not be fully engaged in some of the licensing and certification training are important to

you. Listed below are a set of behaviors that have been reported to you in which professionals in your

organization might have compromised their ethics mindset in the learning environment. As a reminder, to

have an ethics mindset, you must:

$$ Desire to do what is right

$$ Understand what is right and wrong

$$ Avoid doing what is wrong

$$ Commit to and do what is right

Required

$$ The matrix below includes a list of the different behaviors of professionals in a learning environment.

$$ For each behavior, indicate whether you believe the professional did or did not behave in an

ethical manner.

$$ For each behavior, provide support for your assessment based on a review of the principles and

techniques in the ethics mindset framework that you learned about in the Introduction to the

ethics mindset module.

Behavior

Ethical

or

unethical Support

$1.$ For an in$-$person training, a software

consulting professional only attended

half of the training, but signed in to say

she had attended the entire time.

$($Assume that the training was not

required by a state or other such

authority to maintain a license or a

certification.$)$

$2.$ During an in$-$person training, a tax

accountant brought his laptop and

worked on another task, not paying

attention to any of the training.

$3.$ For an online training, a technology

consultant in the firm$$s Enterprise and

Technology Risk practice skipped

through the lecture portions and just took

the exam, certifying that he knew the

material. He scored a passing grade on

the exam.

Ethics mindset $$ Case studies $$ Ethics in a learning environment $6$

$2021$ Ernst & Young Found