Cracking the code

Challenge
The CPP Investment Board is one of the largest single-purpose investment pools in the world, and a model for other national pension plans. They pride themselves on their rigorous standards of integrity in supporting the retirement needs of over 16 million Canadians.

As a highly visible public and private sector entity, the CPP Investment Board recognized the importance of having a clear and comprehensive code of conduct that employees, officers and directors could read, understand and comply with.

But their code of conduct actually consisted of four separate documents that all looked and read like legalese – anything but clear and straightforward.

Solution
To solve the problem, we distilled these documents into one standard code that holds everyone involved with the CPP Investment Board to the same standard of conduct. We established a new tone and approach, re-wrote the code and accompanying forms, and designed them to make the document more inviting and easier to understand.

Result
Testing our work with a cross-section of people (including the conduct review advisor and a third party responsible for auditing information and verifying compliance) confirmed that we’d created a clear, complete and accurate policy document. Positive feedback from the test group, management, the governance committee and the board of directors told us we’d met their expectations.

Our own measure of success? Creating a code of conduct that is a clear, practical guide to appropriate behavior for people working for an organization Canadians needed to know they can trust.