Corpedia, a provider of corporate and institutional ethics training, consulting, and risk-assessment solutions, has issued five “pointers for performance” to help companies create a strong ethical culture and reputation for integrity.

Corpedia’s top five simple pointers for performance include:

Don’t wait until it’s too late: Take preventative measures by instituting an effective compliance and ethics program to not only avoid problems, but aid in defending your organization in the event of a compliance breakdown. Regulators and enforcement agencies tend to look more favorably upon those companies who’ve made an earnest effort to walk the straight and narrow.

Articulate expectations: Developing and effectively communicating a clear, comprehensive code of conduct to set and reinforce behavioral requirements will help safeguard employees from veering off the road to success. If you have a code in place, it should be revised every two years or so.

You can’t run or hide: Make sure your house is in order. There has never been greater scrutiny or enforcement of anti-bribery conventions using mechanisms such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, so being organized, transparent, and accountable is imperative.

Work out the old, bring in the new: Review and modify existing policies and procedures, and consider creating new controls to meet the demands of now and, even better, tomorrow.

Knowledge is power: Take advantage of available research that sheds light on others’ successes and failures and outlines the framework for a bulletproof compliance and ethics program.

“Compliance programs cannot be devised and never revisited. They must evolve and adapt to constantly changing rules and regulations,” said Stephen Martin, general counsel and vice president of Corpedia. “Revisiting and making changes to the critical components of an organization’s ethics and compliance program can effectively address how the various facets stack up against important government criteria, as well as reasonable and best practices of analogous companies.”