How to write a code of conduct

To write a code of conduct, decide who it covers, choose a small number of standards, and turn each one into specific behaviours people should and should not show. Add firm rules where judgement fails, such as conflicts of interest, gifts and money, set out how to raise a concern without fear of reprisal, grade breaches with an example and a likely outcome for each, and finish with an acknowledgement that everyone signs. Keep it short enough to be read at induction and found again on a bad night.

Standards as behaviours

A code is read twice: once at induction and again when something goes wrong. Both readings need behaviours, not values. “Respect is a core value” cannot be followed or breached; “never shout or swear at players” can.

The code of conduct example, for a fictional netball association, applies to staff, its 400 volunteers, coaches, team managers and committee members. It keeps eight standards, respect, child safety, fair play, honesty with money, conflicts of interest, gifts, social media and alcohol, and writes each as a Do column and a Do not column of three lines.

Respect, for example, becomes: do use people’s names, listen before you answer, and call out poor behaviour when you see it; do not shout or swear at players, discriminate or exclude anyone, or run down umpires or officials after a game. A volunteer can hold six behaviours in their head. Nobody can hold a paragraph of values.

For organisations that work with children, the National Principles for Child Safe Organisations, endorsed by Australian governments in 2019, expect governance arrangements that include a code of conduct, and the National Office for Child Safety publishes an example code that sets clear expectations for behaviours that promote child safety. The example’s child safety standard does this with observable lines: have two adults present at every junior activity, follow the check in and check out process, hold a current working with children check; never be alone with a child in a closed room, transport a child without a second adult or written parent consent, or contact a child on personal social media.

Conflicts of interest and gifts

These are the sections a committee reaches for when judgement has failed, so they need numbers and tables.

Money. The example requires two approvers on every payment from an association account, whatever the amount, with no exceptions, including the president. It adds do lines such as banking takings within two days and never approving your own reimbursement.

Conflicts. Members declare any conflict in a register at the start of each season and again the moment one appears. A table answers “do I declare?” with three worked cases: a family member in a team you select, yes; a supplier you own shares in, yes; a friend on the committee, no, unless a decision affects them.

Gifts. Record every gift in the gift register, get approval for anything over $50, and refer event hospitality to the president. Never accept cash in any amount, keep a gift over $50 without approval, or accept a gift from a supplier during a tender.

A company version keeps the same shape. Listed entities follow the ASX Corporate Governance Principles and Recommendations, now in their fourth edition released in 2019, which apply on an “if not, why not” basis and recommend a code of conduct for directors, senior executives and employees. For a sports club, Sport Integrity Australia publishes the National Integrity Framework, a set of policies sports can adopt to manage integrity threats, and runs a Safe Sport Hotline, so a club code can point members to both rather than inventing its own member protection rules.

Raising a concern

A code that does not say how to raise a concern will not surface one. Give more than one route, a response time and a clear promise of no reprisal.

The example offers three routes, the team manager, the welfare officer or a confidential email address, promises a response within five days, and says raising a concern in good faith never leads to reprisal. A small process diagram shows the same path for every concern: raised, assessed, investigated, outcome, review.

Say where serious matters go outside the organisation. For child safety, that means a report to the relevant authority, not an internal conversation.

Breaches and consequences

Publishing the consequences in advance means an outcome lands as expected rather than as an ambush. The example grades breaches at three levels, each with an example and a possible outcome:

• Minor. A late conflict declaration: a conversation and a note in the register.
• Serious. A gift over $50 not declared: a written warning or removal from a role.
• Severe. A child safety breach: immediate stand down and a report to the authority.

It adds one rule that overrides the table: a child safety breach is always severe. For employees, link the breach levels to the performance and disciplinary process in the handbook, so the code and the employment process do not contradict each other.

Acknowledgement and review

End with a short signed statement. The example reads: I have read the code of conduct of the association and agree to follow it in every role I hold, with lines for name, role and date, and a countersignature from the welfare officer.

Date the code to a period and record who approved it. The example is for the 2027 season, effective 1 January 2027 and approved by the board on 10 December 2026, which builds an annual review into the calendar.

The sections table

The table at the end of this article lists eleven sections, what each contains and how the netball association code handles it. The note on what a code of conduct is covers the term in general. For a company, the conduct rules often sit inside an employee handbook instead, and topic policies such as an information security policy carry the detail; the guide to employee handbook sections shows how the pieces fit together.

Common mistakes

Values without behaviours. “Integrity” on a poster tells nobody what to do at 7pm on a Tuesday.

No numbers. “Reasonable gifts” invites every argument a $50 threshold avoids.

One route for concerns. If the only route is the person the concern is about, nothing will be raised.

Consequences left unstated. An outcome that was never published feels arbitrary, even when it is fair.

Unsigned. Without an acknowledgement, a member can say they never saw it.

Build it

When a document here is classified by scale, six pages or more is long, and long documents are planned section by section and may carry a table of contents with titles that match the headings exactly, as the example’s five line contents does. A cover is only added to documents a reader would expect one on and never under three pages, and the seven cover layouts include masthead, which the example uses.

Callouts come in four variants, info, warning, success and danger, which suits a rule such as two approvers on every payment, and diagrams come in five variants, including process for the concern path. Signature blocks carry one signer per party, each with a name, email and signing order. The AI chat edits text only, so it can sharpen a behaviour line without touching the layout. The page on callouts shows the four variants, and the tutorial on creating a document with AI covers the first draft.