@hp Employee Portal story, v5

What Would You Do If...?

Cautionary tales from the front lines of HP.

July 5, 2010

“A clear conscience is a soft pillow,” says a French proverb.

“Don’t leave the high road for a shortcut,” says a Spanish proverb.

As HP employees, all of us are required to hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards, and

to err on the side of caution if we have any doubts. For this reason and others, most of us would

not think of crossing the line and behaving unethically or contrary to the law.

But sometimes we can get swept along in circumstances that seem beyond our control.

Sometimes, perhaps under pressure or stress, we can choose to do something that’s easier or

quicker rather than right. “An open door can tempt a saint,” says another proverb from Italy.

What would you do if you faced a situation that raised red flags in your conscience? What would

you do if you saw something unethical or unlawful taking place in the company?

These are important questions -- vitally important. HP’s reputation is at stake, as is the trust

we’ve worked so hard to build with our fellow employees, customers, partners, shareholders,

and the people in our communities. Our individual jobs and careers could be at stake, too.

The Ethics Bulletin, published quarterly by the Ethics & Compliance Office in the HP Legal

Department, discusses ethical situations that HP employees have. The goal is to help employees

better understand how ethics and compliance issues arise in real work place situations.

What would you do if you found yourself in one of these situations?

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Sidebar: As a rule of thumb, don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of

tomorrow’s newspaper, advises the Ethics and Compliance Office.

________________________________________________________________________________

Outside employment

Some employees, in order to realize their financial goals, consider getting a second job. In some

cases, this can be okay, if the employee fully discloses his or her outside position. In other

situations, manager or even higher-level approval is needed.

But what if you needed a second job and were offered a position that in some way interfered

with your work at HP? What if your second job could be considered to be in competition with

HP, or required you to use HP resources?

One HP employee made some bad decisions that led to his termination. What would you do if

you had been in his place?

http://sbc.corp.hp.com/Contents/files/managers/EBv7/index.html#2

Is “Off the Books” Out of Bounds?

What you do with your own money outside of work is your business, but when it comes to

handling financial matters within HP, we are required to be transparent and uphold the highest

standards of integrity.

Is it ever okay to set up off-the-books accounts related to customers, partners or any other

aspect of our work at HP? And if there have been allegations of wrongdoing, is it ever okay to

impede an internal investigation?

Several employees made bad choices in these areas, and suffered the consequences of not

following HP’s Standards of Business Conduct ....

http://sbc.corp.hp.com/Contents/files/managers/EBv8/index.html#2

Avoiding fraud

“Don’t worry, be happy,” says a popular song. But when conducting HP business, we have to

“sweat the details” and be very concerned about the legal and ethical implications of our actions

(or inaction). Complacency, sloppy work and shortcuts could result in harsh consequences.

Not too long ago, some HP employees became lax when it came to performing front-end, end-

user verification of some heavily discounted products. That is, prior to finalizing the deal, they

didn’t verify exactly who would be using the HP products, and the results were disastrous. A

great deal of money was lost, and many of the employees were terminated.

http://sbc.corp.hp.com/Contents/files/managers/ebv9/index.html#2

Can you learn something from their mistakes?

Going too far to get results

As business people, we want our numbers to be strong, and sometimes just one more deal can

be the difference between a good quarter and a great quarter for our team.

But is it ever okay to record business that we think will come through, when we don’t yet have

all the necessary paperwork?

@hp Employee Portal story, v5

That’s what one business-unit director did, and his assumptions related to revenue recognition

ended up being incorrect, setting off a chain of unfortunate events.

http://sbc.corp.hp.com/Contents/files/managers/EBv6/index.html#2

More Information: Visit the Ethics and Compliance Office homepage

Read past issues of the quarterly Ethics Bulletins and subscribe to future issues

Use the many resources available to you to raise a concern or ask a question