For quite a few of us today, it was an “ethical” kind of day. Being the proud HFTP certificate holder that I am (CHAE, 2007) and with the new CPE requirements for maintaining 4 points of ethics during your two year reporting period, today was a fabulous day. By attending the three ethics classes offered this week, any HFTP certificate holder was able to clear out the new ethics requirement. Whew! What a relief and a BIG thanks to the HFTP Education Council for making attaining said credits so accessible!
Ethics – It was difficult to filter through the crowds during class, but after some evaluation you pretty much landed in one of three categories:
- People who attended this class felt they personally or professionally needed some more ethics.
You already had some ethics and felt you should attend to verify you’re on the right track with your moral compass.- Like me, you seized this awesome opportunity to maintain your hard earned certification and get your CPE all in one fell swoop.
If you attended the first class this morning you may have dragged yourself into Celestin B knowing you had to get this requirement out of the way. Ethics is a tough, argumentative, relational, necessary, dry, pretty much in every way totally un-fun topic.
Speaker Danny Goldberg opens class by saying, “ethics is one big ball of gray.” This really engaging and enlightening speaker (sniff, sniff) had me at “hello.” There were group exercises and great feedback from all of the participants! Essentially your “ethical dilemma” was on the screen and you had to reason it out with your teammates on what we believed was the best ethical choice. Our association is blessed with a lot of smart people out there and it was a privilege to get to know each one of you and learn from your professional experiences and “lessons learned.”
All three ethics classes today were informative, collaborative, insightful, and challenging! My brain was really working! At the end of class three it was said of any ethical decision you make you should ask yourself; “Can I sleep at night based on the decision I made today?”
A big thanks to Danny Goldberg for being a true rock star. He explained that he had absolutely no idea what the right answer was for any of those “ethical scenarios” we were challenged with. But he did say this, “Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Cognizant of what your Policies say – and make sure your employees not only understand them, but sign off on them too.”
Shouldn’t we all be truly excited for what tomorrow may bring in terms of education and excellence? Cheers to you my ethical friend — as we continue to elevate ourselves in knowledge and understanding.
Stoke the Fire!
Jessica Vint, CHAE, is a senior accountant for Kinseth Hospitality based in Liberty, Iowa. Jessica has been an active member of HFTP since 2004 and has served as a director on the HFTP Global Board.
Please note: The content published in this section was provided by the Guest Blogger and not of HFTP, nor any person or organization affiliated or doing business with HFTP.
To be able to sleep at night, indeed. I like to think that we all have a solid moral compass . . . but I also see the value of getting into a classroom environment to face potential dilemma. We are better for the stress of facing these scenarios! And thanks for the great “takeaway” = Be Open, Be Transparent, Be Cognizant … Nice job, Jessica!
Nice !