Objective

As an employee, you are responsible to behave appropriately at work. We outline our expectations here. We can’t cover every case of conduct, but we trust you always to use your best judgment. Reach out to your manager or HR if you have any issues or questions. This company code of conduct policy applies to all current employees of the company, as well as independent contractors and persons acting on behalf of the company.

Dress code

Our company’s official dress code is Casual. This includes Company T-shirts, Casual Shirts/T-shirts, Casual shoes, Skirt and Blouses. However, an employee’s position may also inform how they should dress. If you frequently meet with clients or prospects, please conform to a more formal dress code. We expect you to be clean when coming to work and avoid wearing unprofessional clothes (e.g. more torn or workout clothes). 

Employees are required to wear company merchandise, such as t-shirts, on Mondays and Thursdays. If there is a valid reason for not doing so, it must be officially communicated to the HR department.



Footwear must be appropriate for the workplace. Men are required to wear shoes/ other appropriate wear, and ladies must wear suitable footwear. Slippers are not allowed.

As long as you conform to our guidelines above, we don’t have specific expectations about what types of clothes or accessories you should wear. We also respect and permit grooming styles, clothing, and accessories that are dictated by religious beliefs, ethnicity, or disability.

Mobile phones usage

We allow the use of mobile phones at work. But, we also want to ensure that your devices won’t distract you from your work or disrupt our workplace. We ask you to follow a few simple rules:

• Use your mobile phone in a manner that benefits your work (work calls, productivity apps, calendars).
• Keep personal calls brief and use an empty meeting room or common area so as not to disturb your colleagues.
• Avoid playing games on your phone or texting excessively.
• Don’t download or upload inappropriate, illegal or obscene material using our corporate internet connection.



Also if applicable, you must not use your phone in areas where cell phone use is explicitly prohibited.

Corporate email usage

Email is essential to our work. You should use your company email primarily for work, but we allow some uses of your email for some exempt reasons.

You can use your corporate email for work-related purposes without limitations. For example, you can sign up for newsletters and online services that will help you in your job or professional growth. Use of corporate email for personal usage is discouraged.

While using your corporate email, we expect you to avoid:

• Signing up for illegal, unreliable, disreputable, or suspect websites and services.
• Sending unauthorized marketing content or emails.
• Registering for a competitor’s services, unless authorized.
• Sending insulting or discriminatory messages and content.
• Spamming other people’s emails, including your coworkers.



In general, use strong passwords and be vigilant in catching emails that carry malware or phishing attempts. If you are not sure that an email you received is safe, get help from our DevOps team for more information.

Social media usage

We want to provide practical advice to prevent careless use of social media in our workplace. You are permitted to access your accounts at work. But, we expect you to act responsibly, according to our policies, and ensure that you stay productive. Specifically, we ask you to:

• Discipline yourself - Avoid getting sidetracked by your social platforms.
• Ensure others know that your personal account or statements don’t represent our company. For example, use a disclaimer such as “opinions are my own.”
• Avoid sharing intellectual property (e.g. trademarks) or confidential information. Ask your manager or HR first before you share company news that’s not officially announced.
• Avoid any defamatory, offensive, or derogatory content. You may violate our company’s anti-harassment policy if you direct such content toward colleagues, clients, or partners.

Representing our company through social media

If you handle our social media accounts or speak on our company’s behalf, we expect you to protect our company’s image and reputation. Specifically, you should:

• Be respectful, polite, and patient.
• Avoid speaking on matters outside your field of expertise when possible.
• Follow our confidentiality and data protection policies and observe laws governing copyrights, trademarks, plagiarism, and fair use.
• Coordinate with our Marketing department when you’re about to share any major-impact content.
• Avoid deleting or ignoring comments for no reason.
• Correct or remove any misleading or false content as quickly as possible.

Confidentiality and data protection

We want to ensure that private information about clients, employees, partners, and our company is well-protected. Examples of confidential information are:

• Employee records
• Unpublished financial information
• Data of customers/partners/vendors
• Customer lists (existing and prospective)
• Unpublished goals, forecasts, and initiatives marked as confidential

As part of our hiring process, we may ask you to sign non-compete and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs.) We are also committed to:

• Restrict and monitor access to sensitive data.
• Develop transparent data collection procedures.
• Train employees in online privacy and security measures.
• Build secure networks to protect online data from cyberattacks.
• Establish data protection practices (e.g. secure locks, data encryption, frequent backups, access authorization.)
• We also expect you to act responsibly when handling confidential information.

You must:

• Lock or secure confidential information at all times.
• Shred confidential documents when they’re no longer needed.
• Make sure you view confidential information on secure devices only.
• Only disclose information to other employees when it’s necessary and authorized.
• Keep confidential documents inside our company’s premises unless it’s necessary to move them.

You must not:

• Use confidential information for your personal benefit or profit.
• Disclose confidential information to anyone outside of our company.
• Replicate confidential documents and files and store them on insecure devices.



This policy is important for our company’s legality and reputation. We will terminate any employee who breaches our confidentiality guidelines for personal profit. We may also discipline any unintentional breach of this policy depending on its frequency and seriousness. We will take necessary actions against employees who repeatedly disregard this policy, even when they do so unintentionally.

Conflict of interest

When you are experiencing a conflict of interest, your personal goals are no longer aligned with your responsibilities towards us. For example, Providing services to one of our clients/ competitors is a conflict of interest.

In other cases, you may be faced with an ethical issue. For example, accepting an offer to make services may benefit you financially, but it is illegal and against our business code of ethics. If we become aware of such actions, you will face disciplinary actions and any legal trouble.



For this reason, conflicts of interest are a serious issue for all of us. We expect you to be vigilant to spot circumstances that create conflicts of interest, either to yourself or for your direct reports. Follow our policies and always act in our company’s best interests. Whenever possible, do not let personal or financial interests get in the way of your job. If you are experiencing an ethical dilemma, talk to your manager or HR and we will try to help you resolve it.

Employee relationships

We want to ensure that relationships between employees are appropriate and harmonious. We outline our guidelines and we ask you to always behave professionally.

Fraternization

Fraternization refers to dating or being friends with your colleagues. In this policy, “dating” equals consensual romantic relationships and sexual relations. Non-consensual relationships constitute sexual violence and we prohibit them explicitly.

Dating colleagues

If you start dating a colleague, we expect you to maintain professionalism and keep personal discussions outside of our workplace. You are also obliged to respect your colleagues who date each other. We won’t tolerate sexual jokes, malicious gossip, and improper comments. If you witness this kind of behavior, please report it to HR.

Dating managers

To avoid accusations of favoritism, abuse of authority, and sexual harassment, supervisors must not date their direct reports. This restriction extends to every manager above an employee. Also, if you act as a hiring manager, you aren’t allowed to hire your partner to your team. You can refer them for employment to other teams or departments where you don’t have any managerial or hiring authority.

Friendships at work

Employees who work together may naturally form friendships either in or outside of the workplace. We encourage this relationship between peers, as it can help you communicate and collaborate. But, we expect you to focus on your work and keep personal disputes outside of our workplace.

Employment of relatives

Everyone in our company should be hired, recognized, or promoted because of their skills, character, and work ethic. We would not like to see phenomena of nepotism, favoritism, or conflicts of interest, so we will place some restrictions on hiring employees’ relatives.

To our company, a “relative” is someone who is related by blood or marriage within the third degree to an employee. This includes: parents, grandparents, in-laws, spouses or domestic partners, children, grandchildren, siblings, uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, step-parents, step-children, and adopted children.



As an employee, you can refer your relatives to work with our company. Here are our only restrictions:

• You must not be involved in a supervisory/reporting relationship with a relative.
• You cannot be transferred, promoted, or hired inside a reporting relationship with a relative.
• You cannot be part of a hiring committee when your relative is interviewed for that position.

Workplace visitors

If you want to invite a visitor to our offices, please ask for permission from our HR Manager or Relevant Management Team first.

When you have office visitors, you also have responsibilities. You should:

• Always take care of your visitors (especially when they are underage).
• Prevent your visitors from proselytizing your colleagues, gathering donations, or requesting participation in activities while on our premises.



Anyone who delivers orders, mail, or packages for employees should remain at our building’s entrance/ Reception area.

Solicitation and distribution

Solicitation is any form of requesting money, support, or participation for products, groups, organizations, or causes that are unrelated to our company (e.g. religious proselytism, asking for petition signatures). Distribution means disseminating literature or material for commercial or political purposes.

We don’t allow solicitation and distribution by non-employees in our workplace. As an employee, you may solicit from your colleagues only when you want to:

• Ask colleagues to help organize events for another employee (e.g. birthday,  promotion, retirement, adoption/birth of a child).
• Seek support for a cause, charity, or fundraising event sponsored, funded, organized, or authorized by our company.
• Invite colleagues to employee activities for an authorized non-business purpose (e.g. recreation, volunteering, CSR projects).
• Ask colleagues to participate in employment-related activities or groups protected by law (e.g. trade unions).

In all cases, we ask that you do not disturb or distract colleagues from their work.

Harassment and violence

To build a happy and productive workplace, we need everyone to treat others well and help them feel safe. Each of us should do our part to prevent harassment and workplace violence.

Workplace harassment

Harassment is a broad term and may include seemingly harmless actions, like gossip. We can’t create an exhaustive list, but here are some instances that we consider harassment:

• Sabotaging someone’s work on purpose.
• Engaging in frequent or unwanted advances of any nature.
• Commenting derogatorily on a person’s ethnic heritage or religious beliefs.
• Starting or spreading rumors about a person’s personal life.
• Ridiculing someone in front of others or singling them out to perform tasks unrelated to their job (e.g. bringing coffee) against their will.

Sexual harassment is illegal and we will seriously investigate relevant reports. If an employee is found guilty of sexual harassment, they will be terminated. If you’re being harassed, whether by a colleague, customer, or vendor, you can choose to talk to any of these people:

• Offenders - If you suspect that an offender doesn’t realize they are guilty of harassment, you could talk to them directly to resolve the harassment. This tactic is appropriate for cases of minor harassment (e.g. inappropriate jokes between colleagues.) Avoid using this approach with customers or stakeholders.
• Your manager - If customers, stakeholders, or team members are involved in your claim, you may reach out to your manager. Your manager will assess your situation and may contact HR if appropriate.
• HR Manager - Feel free to reach out to HR in any case of harassment no matter how minor it may seem. For your safety, contact HR as soon as possible in cases of serious harassment (e.g. sexual advances) or if your manager is involved in your claim. Anything you disclose will remain confidential.

Workplace violence

Violence in our workplace is a serious form of harassment. It includes physical and sexual assault, destruction of property, threats to harm a person or property, and verbal and psychological abuse. We want to avoid those incidents altogether, but we also want to be ready to respond if needed.

For this reason, we ask you to report to HR Manager if you suspect or know that someone is being violent. Your report will be confidential and we will investigate the situation with discretion.

We will treat employees who verbally threaten others as high risk and they will receive an appropriate penalty. If HR finds that an employee commits an act of violence, we will terminate that employee and possibly press criminal charges. Employees who damage property deliberately will be solely responsible for paying for it.

Others

• No food or snacks are allowed inside the workstation, except during events or functions arranged by the company.
• Apptimus is a smoke-free workplace. You can smoke in the outer premises. Any other area in our workplace (like restrooms, lobby, offices, staircases, balcony) is strictly smoke-free to protect non-smokers.
• Apptimus is a drug-free workplace. Whether you are an employee, contractor, or visitor, must not bring, use, give away, or sell any drugs on company premises. If you are caught with illegal drugs or show that you are under the influence of substances, you will face disciplinary action up to and including termination.
• We prohibit employees from consuming alcohol during working hours, but they may consume alcoholic drinks in moderation at company events.