As a result, our brand has evolved. We’re excited to share how we’ve built on our vision, beliefs and core values to reflect where we see ourselves today, and where we’re going.

The foundation of who we are is our purpose: delivering a better world. It unites our organization and has always been clear. It also drove the development of Sustainable Legacies, our recently introduced strategy for reaching bold environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives that make a positive impact on our company, our communities and our planet.

“Our purpose unites us as professionals, aligns us with the ambitions we share with our clients and defines the sustainable legacies and opportunities we are creating through the impact of our work,” said Chief Executive Officer Troy Rudd.

As our company evolves, so do the values that shape our culture and guide how we work. In partnering with clients to turn their ambitions into action, we are sharpening our focus on digital transformation, sustainability, and equity, diversity and inclusion. Our refreshed core values reinforce our commitment to managing our business with the utmost responsibility and always striving for better.

• Safeguard – We operate ethically and with integrity, while prioritizing safety and security in all that we do.
• Innovate – We think without limits and embrace new ideas, shaping digital solutions to help clients address current and future challenges.
• Collaborate – We connect unrivaled expertise from around the world to anticipate and solve our clients’ most pressing challenges.
• Deliver – We grow our business through relentless client focus, operational excellence and exceptional project execution.
• Sustain – We take action to make a positive impact on the planet, enrich the communities we touch and build legacies for future generations.
• Thrive – We build diverse teams, create an inclusive workplace and provide opportunities where each one of our people can reach their full potential.

You’ll see these changes reflected in our visual identity, which in line with the issues our clients and society are concerned about is greener and more natural than before. We’ve also developed a signature graphic that’s circular shape conveys our shared journey, representing our inclusive, collaborative global community working together to deliver a better world.

Together, we’re nearly 50,000 planners, designers, engineers, scientists, consultants and program and construction managers who believe in a world where infrastructure creates opportunity for everyone – uplifting communities, improving access and sustaining our planet. While we may look a little different and sound a little different, we continue to be the world’s trusted infrastructure consulting firm.

At ArchTam, we’re delivering a better world. And we hope you’ll join us on this journey.

The post Delivering a better world appeared first on Blog.

I then joined URS, an ArchTam legacy company, as a project manager for our U.S. government client’s efforts to design, test and deploy a fleet of transport vehicles. I was responsible for the program’s cost, schedule and performance—which taught me the importance of sound execution and customer service.

After a couple of years, I decided to put my legal background to work and transitioned into what is now ArchTam’s Management Services legal department. I advised on U.S. government contract issues, conducted internal investigations and managed a wide variety of compliance activities. Several years later, I was offered the chance to move into a full time ethics and compliance role at the corporate level and leaped at the opportunity. The new role enabled me to operate on a more international stage again—within a year I was able to travel to India, China and throughout the Middle East.

Having worked first on the client side and now leading Ethics + Compliance at ArchTam, I noticed that we tend to emphasize the procedures required to be compliant rather than focusing on behavior. A coherent program to address compliance risks related to issues like corruption and international trade is certainly needed, but there’s no substitute for a strong culture of ethics.

Our leaders point to the importance of safeguarding ArchTam’s integrity, but the strength of our culture ultimately relies on our people internalizing our values and making good choices. That is why ArchTam’s Ethics Week, September 19-23, focuses on individual behaviors rather than policies and procedures. This year’s theme, “Safeguarding our people, our work and our world,” celebrates and promotes our workplace culture built on ethics and integrity. The idea is to empower our people to act with integrity by identifying and resolving ethical dilemmas that they may face in their day-to-day activities.

I’m proud to be an employee of ArchTam, and I am always looking for ways to engage colleagues throughout the company in building a culture that is founded upon doing the right thing and operating with integrity in everything we do.

My Personal Philosophy: I think that we communicate with each other most authentically when we connect ArchTam’s core values of Safeguard, Collaborate, Inspire, Anticipate, Deliver and Dream to our personal values. My personal ethics encourage me to promote the greater good, collaborate with others fairly and meaningfully, and treat all people with dignity and respect. These ethics help me contribute to safeguarding our people, our work and our world.

The post Safeguarding our people, our work and our world appeared first on Blog.

Despite employees’ competing responsibilities, ethics training is important and can have an impact on business, the company’s reputation, and daily office morale. A company cannot afford to leave ethical decision making to chance because one hasty or ill-conceived action by an employee can harm an entire organization.

For instance, treating a client to a seemingly innocent meal while competing for his/her business could land the employee, the company and the potential client in hot water. Depending on the specific circumstances, this might reasonably be interpreted by the recipient as a reward for preferential treatment in order to create an obligation to the other party.

Effective ethics training is less skills-based and more focused on setting expectations of behavior in a variety of contexts. Therefore, it’s helpful to use dilemma or scenario-based training of varying complexity that is reinforced regularly so employees can spot issues and make the right choices.

For example, what does harassment in the work place look like? How do you react when a client requests a personal benefit? Is the customer always right? Or do we have established boundaries that can’t be crossed?

Employees usually know the answers to these questions in an abstract setting, but when an important contract or critical customer relationship is on the line, employees can feel pressured. This is why effective ethics training is more a matter of instilling values and promoting positive behaviors rather than solving any particular problem or reciting a dogmatic list of rules. The aim is to help employees make sense of what, at a glance, might seem like a convoluted situation and determine the ethical choice.

ArchTam requires all employees to complete ethics training and encourages them to think of it as something that is necessary for business operations, similar to established processes such as completing expense reports. Additionally, the firm’s comprehensive ethics-and-compliance training program requires employees to acknowledge their understanding and commitment to the organization’s purpose and core values annually.

The majority of ArchTam’s success in getting employees to take ethics training seriously can be attributed to a handful of factors. It starts with the company’s strong “Tone at the Top” — which is the level of support and communication from senior executives and other leaders within the organization. Another factor is the company’s culture — the support and encouragement employees receive from their peers in treating ethics training as an important business process. One way for managers to harness the power of positive peer pressure is to offer an incentive – perhaps a team lunch – to the first group that completes training.

However, the single-most-important factor in getting employees to recognize the importance of ethics training is a manager who models the right behavior. If a manager consciously promotes ethics training as a priority, then it is more likely to resonate with his or her employees or project staff. What better way to get employees to renew their ethics training than by having their manager complete his or her training first and then saying “I’ve completed my Ethics training, have you?” That manager can then more effectively communicate, both formally and informally, to his or her direct reports on how valuable ethics training really is.

It’s hard to overstate the importance of ethics training because it’s part of the foundation of ArchTam’s ethics and compliance program. Indeed, it’s one of the most important ways we can preserve the company’s reputation, support our long-term prosperity and promote our values.

Comment below to share why you think ethics is important as well as what factors create a successful ethics and compliance program!

Monique Nguyen, director of ethics and compliance training and integration, is based in ArchTam’s Arlington, Virginia, office. Monique has spent the last four years working in the company’s ethics and compliance office, most recently, heading the company’s global compliance-training program. She has been with the company for more than seven years and has a background in human resources for U.S. government contracting.

The post Why ethics training? appeared first on Blog.