• The Ethics Risk Assessment™ reveals how well your organization is managing critical integrity and antifraud behaviors that determine the effectiveness of an ethics and compliance program; and
• The Culture Risk Assessment™ helps close behavior gaps by creating an objective snapshot of the values underlying employee behavior, making it possible to translate qualitative values into an objective action plan. 

The Ethics Risk Assessment (ERA) is a Web-based survey tool that measures employee perceptions and attitudes on 36 questions, providing clear guidance on how well the company is doing in meeting its compliance goals and where it needs to focus its training and communication efforts. The product was developed with the Metrus Group, which has, since 1988, provided high performance business tools, including balanced scorecards; employee surveys; strategy mapping; supplier, customer, and internal alignment surveys; business acumen training; and performance management. The benefits of the ERA enable companies to:

• Maximize return on investment in training and communication by focusing attention on those areas that generate the greatest risk,
• Provide a baseline measurement for leadership to gauge progress in meeting ethics goals,
• Fight fraud by gauging the organization’s progress in creating an environment where employees feel secure enough to report potentially fraudulent activities,
• Meet the Federal Sentencing Guidelines requirement for periodic measurement of the effectiveness of ethics and compliance programs, and
• Generate survey data to determine risk areas that require additional focus for communication and learning intervention.

The Culture Risk Assessment (CRA) helps translate soft qualitative data on values into quantitative data that can be reported internally and externally; provides a baseline measurement for monitoring changes in organizational culture; and helps measure the resources available to the organization to meet its integrity goals. The CRA is adapted from the Corporate Transformation Tools developed by Richard Barrett & Associates, used by more than 700 organizations in 24 countries in the past six years. It has been adopted by McKinsey & Co. for mapping corporate cultures and measuring progress toward achieving culture change.

The CRA provides the organization with two key indicators:

1. Feedback on how the senior team sees the current culture and their collective vision of the desired corporate culture (helps prioritize interventions to solidify and sustain the culture in order to achieve desired levels of integrity).
2. Identification of areas for additional inquiry in terms of either a wider assessment of the broader culture or specific assessments of business units, higher risk departments or divisions that require a more focused ethics and compliance inquiry.

"Many organizations that have identified their legal risks and have implemented comprehensive controls and processes stop there," said Working Values President, David Gebler. "Most companies don’t have the tools to determine management's confidence level that their people will do the right thing when confronted with an ethical dilemma, and what the organization can do to create the necessary ethical environment. In carrying out their oversight responsibilities, boards should be asking for hard data on the ethical climate in their organization and what management is doing to reduce integrity risks. Today, Working Values introduces two new tools to help organizations turn subjective data into an objective plan for action."

The Ethics Risk Assessment and Culture Risk Assessment are available in both online and offline deployment options, and can be readily customized to address topics and content that are unique to an individual organization. To receive more information on either, please visit: www.workingvalues.com/assessment.asp  

The Ethics Risk Assessment survey may be ordered on the Web. For more information, please call Working Values at (800) 208-3535, or visit www.workingvalues.com/era.asp.

About Working Values, Ltd.
Working Values® Ltd., a SmartPros® company, is one of the world's leading developers of integrated values-based corporate responsibility and ethics awareness and compliance learning programs. Since 1993, Working Values has helped organizations such as America Online, Coors Brewing Company, Reebok International, Schering Plough, The Scotts Company and Weyerhaeuser align workplace behavior with standards, values and ethical principles. For more information, visit www.workingvalues.com/era.asp.

About SmartPros Ltd.
Founded 1981, SmartPros Ltd. is an industry leader in the field of accredited professional education. Its products and services are primarily focused in the accredited professional areas of corporate accounting, financial management, public accounting, governmental and not-for-profit accounting, engineering, and ethics and compliance. SmartPros' customers include over half of Fortune 500 companies, as well as the major firms and associations in each of its professional markets. SmartPros provides education and content publishing and development services in a variety of media including Web, CD-ROM and video. Our subscription libraries feature hundreds of course titles and 1,000+ hours of accredited education. SmartPros' proprietary Professional Education Center (PEC) Learning Management System (LMS) offers enterprise distribution and administration of education content and information. In addition, SmartPros produces a popular news and information portal for accounting and finance professionals that services 300,000+ visitors and 100,000+ subscribers per month. For more information, visit www.smartpros.com.

Safe Harbor Statement: This release may contain or identify forward looking statements. These statements are based on assumptions and estimates, which are inherently subject to uncertainty and contingencies that are beyond our control and are based on future business decisions that may change.

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Shane Gillispie, VP Marketing Services & eCommerce
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