More corporations are using employee opinion surveys to gauge the effectiveness of their ethics and compliance programs. But such surveys have their limitations, and some companies are over-relying on these popular questionnaires, the publication Ethikos reports in its March/April 2009 issue.

Too many ethics surveys use simplistic benchmarks, suggests author Ed Petry, a consultant and former executive director of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA). Moreover, "If ethics officers are designing surveys to facilitate benchmarking with one another, does this tend to accelerate both a leveling of our programs as well as sameness?" he writes in the article that can be read at http://ethikosjournal.com/html/ethicssurveys.html.

An over-reliance on such surveys, indeed, is symptomatic of a troubling trend within the corporate ethics movement, in Petry's view, one that arguably transforms the role of the ethics officer: "Today, when more and more companies outsource their helplines, rely on computer-based training, and otherwise employ technology to improve efficiencies, are ethics officers becoming less available and less visible to employees? Are ethics and compliance professionals becoming backroom analysts, crunching data and preparing reports? Are they spending too much time managing numbers instead of issues or people?

"These are questions that go to the very foundation of what it means today - and in the years to come - to be an ethics and compliance officer."