MEDIA
Code of Ethics
This document is intended to provide guidelines for all TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants and help each individual make appropriate and ethical choices. It also provides a basis for evaluating our work from an ethical point of view. By heeding this code, TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants help to preserve and enhance trust.
This Code of Ethics requires us to consider the impact of our actions on other persons and, if necessary, to modify our actions to reflect respect and concern for others. It emphasizes our obligations to our colleagues, employers, and our customers. Those obligations provide the organizing structure for these guidelines. The text of this code draws on the work of many professional societies. Many codes of ethics have a similar structure and provide similar guidelines to their organizations. This is primarily due to the fact that they are based upon a similar concept of morality.
A positive tone is taken throughout the text of this code. TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants are required to commit themselves to ethical behavior rather than merely seeking to avoid specific acts. The problems with listing acts to be avoided are: 1.) there are usually reasonable exceptions to any avoidance rule and 2.) there is implicit approval of any act not on the list. Instead, TwentyOne14 Media’s ethical code provides a list of many positive actions. These explicit actions illustrate respect for others and help strengthen both an understanding of this ethos and a commitment to it.
This Code of Ethics is not expected to provide guidelines for all situations. Uncertainty will occur and personal judgment will be required. On occasion a TwentyOne14 Media employee, partner or consultant may become stuck in a dilemma where two right actions are in conflict with each other or any course of action violates some aspect of this code. Assistance may come from discussing the issue with colleagues, consulting with your supervisor or TwentyOne14 Media’s senior management. Ultimately, each team member must carefully analyze each situation before making a tough decision.
I. Obligation to Community
TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants recognize the impact of his or her work on society as a whole, on subgroups of society including geographic or demographic minorities, on future generations, and inclusive of social, economic, environmental, or technical fields of endeavor. Obligations to society shall be paramount when there is conflict with other obligations. Therefore, TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants will:
1. Do the Best Work Possible
Be objective, use due care, and make full use of education and skills. Practice integrity and not be unduly swayed by the demands of others. Provide full, clear, and accurate information. Be aware of consequences, good and bad. Strive to do what is right, not just what is legal.
2. Contribute to the Community to the Extent Possible, Feasible, and Advisable
Make data and findings widely available. Strive for broad citizen involvement in problem definition, data identification, analysis, and decision-making.
II. Obligation to Company
TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants recognize that he or she has been hired to deliver a high level of needed products and services. TwentyOne14 Media expects quality work and professional conduct. Therefore, TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants will:
1. Deliver Quality Work
Be qualified for the tasks accepted. Keep current in the field through readings and professional development. Identify risks and the potential means to reduce them. Define alternative strategies to reach goals, if possible, and the implications of each. Document work so that others can use it.
2. Protect the Organization’s Integrity
Call attention to emerging issues and identify appropriate responses based on personal expertise. Call attention to the unprofessional work of others. First take concerns to those persons; if satisfaction is not gained and the problems warrant, then additional people should be notified. Admit when a mistake has been made and make corrections where possible.
3. Have a Professional Relationship
Hold information confidential unless authorized to release it. Avoid all conflicts of interest with TwentyOne14 Media, its clients and partners if possible, but when they are unavoidable, disclose that conflict. Avoid soliciting, accepting, or offering any gratuity or inappropriate benefit connected to a potential or existing business or working relationship. Accept critique of your work as a means to improve performance. Honor contracts and assigned responsibilities. Accept decisions of TwentyOne14 Media and its clients, unless they are illegal or unethical. Acknowledge and accept rules about the personal use of company resources. This includes computers, data, telecommunication equipment, and other resources. Strive to resolve differences.
4. Be Honest in Representations
State professional qualifications truthfully. Make honest proposals that allow the work to be completed for the resources requested. Describe products and services fully. Be forthcoming about any limitations of data, assumptions, models, methods, and analysis.
5. Serve the Company First
Act in the best interest of the company at all times and seek to frame your decisions in this manner. Prioritizing a team, manager, or yourself over the company puts us all at risk for a toxic and political work environment; this is a threat to the company’s ability to stay innovative and nimble as we grow in size.
6. Give and Receive Open and Honest Communication
Communication and feedback to others should be candid, courageous, and transparent in an effort to be non-political. Even when there may be difficult feedback to be shared, strive to be courageous in providing it to your fellow colleague. Avoid saying anything about someone that you would not say in their presence. Having difficult conversations with one another will preserve the company’s ability to innovate and avoid complacency and mediocrity.
7. Champion Diversity and Inclusion
TwentyOne14 Media is committed to promoting diversity in front of and behind the camera, in its executive suites, and across the company. We believe that fostering an environment that seeks to include and retain individuals from diverse backgrounds is good business. This includes women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, individuals with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups. Diversity and Inclusion is essential to the future success of the company, and all TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners, and consultants are encouraged to support this initiative.
III. Obligation to Team
TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants recognize the value of being part of a community of other professionals. Together, we support each other and add to the stature of our business and business culture. Therefore, TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants will:
1. Respect the Work of Others.
Cite the work of others whenever possible and appropriate. Honor the intellectual property rights of others. Accept and provide fair critical comments on professional work. Recognize the limitations of one’s own knowledge and skills and recognize and use the skills of other professionals as needed. Work respectfully and capably with others in other disciplines. Respect existing working relationships between others, including employer/employee and contractor/client relationships. Deal honestly and fairly with prospective team members, contractors, and vendors.
2. Contribute to the Improvement of your Co-Workers to the Extent Possible
Volunteer time to mentor less experienced team members. Support individual colleagues in their professional development. Special attention should be given to underrepresented groups whose diverse backgrounds will add to the strength of our business community.
3. Be Resilient and Resourceful
Strive to provide consistently strong performance in your role, seek to overcome obstacles to focus on great results, if you don’t know it learn it or find it, and exhibit bias‐to‐action, avoid analysis‐paralysis. Grow comfortable with managing through chaos, and view your mistakes as opportunities to grow…seek them out and understand them.
4. Innovate
Act on new ideas. Forge towards innovation. Search for new ways to do things better and more efficiently. Encourage and support your team members and commit to striving for high-performance, effective team-work, and quality execution everyday.
5. Strive for Excellence
Be the best version of yourself at all times. Go the extra mile, extend yourself beyond what is expected of you. Strive to leave a meaningful impact on the world, on the company, and on our communities. Pursue excellence in everything that you do. Every team member should desire to leave the company better than it was before they arrived, and every team member should strive to be a better version of themselves than they were when they first joined the TwentyOne14 Media team.
IV. Obligation to Privacy
TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants recognize the impact of his or her work on individual people and will strive to avoid harm to them. Therefore, TwentyOne14 Media team members, partners and consultants will:
1. Respect Privacy
Protect individual and company privacy, especially about sensitive and proprietary company information. Be especially careful with new information discovered about an individual, the company, company communication, company finances, and documents.
2. Respect Individuals
Encourage individual autonomy. Avoid undue intrusions into the lives of individuals. Be truthful when disclosing information about an individual. Treat all individuals equally, without regard to race, gender, or other personal characteristic not related to the task at hand.
V. Legal Statement
Above all else, every TwentyOne14 Media team member, partner and consultant shall ensure that all of their actions and inactions, in connection with the company or otherwise, shall comply with all federal, state and local laws.