Strategies for Preventing Bias and Improving Investigations

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Strategies for Preventing Bias and Improving Investigations

Investigators are called to uphold standards of integrity and honor. However, as Natalie Lewis, CFE, CPA/CFF, stated during her morning session titled “Recognizing the Impact of Bias and Emotional Intelligence in Investigations” on the final day of the 35th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, “Bias can harm our judgment and skew our objectivity.” Lewis then walked conference attendees through different types of biases that affect investigations and discussed strategies for preventing bias and building emotional intelligence and social skills to improve investigations. 

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Recognizing Cognitive Biases Improves Investigations

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Recognizing Cognitive Biases Improves Investigations

Everyone is affected by cognitive biases. As Beth Mohr, CFE, explained during her early morning session on the second day of the 35th Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference, our brains are always thinking, and we are limited in what we can take in. We create mental shortcuts, called heuristics, but sometimes this can lead to systemic errors in thinking, or biases. 

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A New Vision for Ethics and Compliance

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A New Vision for Ethics and Compliance

Ethics and compliance programs are becoming increasingly significant in the business world as more consumers and corporations turn their attentions to the importance of environmental, social and governance (ESG) business initiatives. As a result, the business environment needs to think about ethics and compliance in newer ways.  

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Asking the Tough Questions: Ethics Investigations 

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Asking the Tough Questions: Ethics Investigations 

“The bank robber expects to be arrested, it's an occupational hazard. The bank teller who embezzled does not; they think they are smarter than everyone else.” Wendy Evans, CFE, ACFE Regent and senior manager of ethics core programs and services at Lockheed Martin opened her session at the 34th ACFE Global Fraud Conference explaining that she originally had hesitancy when she first began investigating fraud, thinking it would just consist of boring cases, but as evidenced by her quote, she quickly realized that white-collar crime was vastly different from her experience with typical police work. In her session “Ethics and the Investigative Process, From Intake to Outcome,” Wendy walked attendees through internal ethics investigations, best practices when conducting them and common mistakes made.  

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Professional Ethics: Improving Psychological Safety in the Workplace

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Professional Ethics: Improving Psychological Safety in the Workplace

As a keynote speaker at the 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Canada, Garth Sheriff, CPA ,CA, CIA, and founder of Sheriff Consulting, turned the audience’s attention to the topic of psychological safety. Acknowledging that many audience members may not have heard that term before, Sheriff chose to define it through a number of examples that painted clear images of how psychological safety impacts a workplace.

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Experts to Discuss Emerging Technology, Ethical Decision Making, Burnout and More at Canadian Anti-Fraud Conference

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Experts to Discuss Emerging Technology, Ethical Decision Making, Burnout and More at Canadian Anti-Fraud Conference

Hundreds of anti-fraud professionals will hear from director and CEO of FINTRAC Sarah Paquet, tech journalist Takara Small, Gold AE whistleblower Andre Gauthier and more at the virtual 2021 ACFE Fraud Conference Canada, November 7-10.

One of the speakers, Garth Sheriff, CPA, CA, CIA, will discuss the pivotal role psychological safety plays in preventing fraud in organizations. Sheriff, the founder of Sheriff Consulting, told the ACFE that employees need to have psychological safety in order to maintain an ethical culture. “Psychological safety is a shared belief that a team and organization are safe for interpersonal risk-taking,” Sheriff said. “There are numerous examples … in which pervasive low psychological safety within an organization can cause an individual's ethical decision-making system, or that provided by their profession, to retreat in fear.”

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Beyond Picture Perfect Diversity: How to Create a Sense of Inclusion

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Beyond Picture Perfect Diversity: How to Create a Sense of Inclusion

Dima Ghawi began her session at the 32nd Annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference with a question for virtual attendees: “Why do you believe talking about DEI is important?” While she waited for responses to filter through the chat, she shared a story about her friend whose personal and professional life suffered when he felt like he had to hide part of his identity. Afraid to inform his workplace of his sexual orientation because he felt the community would no longer accept him, Ghawi’s friend started drinking heavily as a coping mechanism, which affected the way he performed at work. To summarize her story, Ghawi stated, “It affects all of us when we are being discriminated…emotionally, physically and at a genetic level.” Therein lies the answer to her opening question.

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