Workforce Compliance Automation in the Real World: Is it critical for your CMS?
We can all agree that a compliance management system (CMS) is an absolute necessity. With continual growth of regulations, rule expansion, and federal and state laws — not to mention increased regulatory oversight — workforce compliance is becoming more complex every day.
For instance, a single industry can face multiple sets of regulations, from consumer finance protection to medical records privacy to internal codes of conduct, each with its own set of policies, procedures, data collection, trainings, forms, grievance management, measurements, assessments and required reporting. And then there’s the whole management side of compliance; after all, someone has to oversee the corporate compliance program.
Given this complexity, what type of CMS is best?
If your company is still using manual methods, you’ll have some tough questions to answer when auditors or regulators come calling:
- How is compliance internally managed?
- Where is it stored?
- Is it in a shared drive? If so, who can access it?
- Is it in a spreadsheet? If so, who has the spreadsheet?
- And if compliance management is on paper and in binders, is everything up to date?
Unfortunately, if you can’t answer these questions, you don’t have any proof that what is supposed to be taking place is actually taking place.
Not automating your compliance program comes with a cost.
I hear a lot of companies say “we think we’re doing it right but we can’t prove it.” Certainly that is unsettling. Even if that’s the case, it’s still likely your workforce compliance rates are low. That puts your company at risk for all kinds of regulatory oversight, even penalties.
Another issue with manual methods is that if you don’t have dedicated headcount to take on the tasks, then your managers are likely buried in a compliance paper chase. This can drastically cut into performing their “real” jobs, such as sales management, employee retention or program development, which, eventually comes at a cost to your business: lost productivity on business critical jobs, and often, low morale. Even the most organized, efficient manager can have a tough time meeting workforce compliance expectations using manual methods.
If you’re on the fence about automating your compliance management system, let me ask you this: why continue to make compliance unnecessarily difficult and costly? Fact is, the manual approach just doesn’t work any longer. With the ever-changing nature of workforce compliance, staff just can’t keep pace with the workload. Visits from auditors, often a result of complaints, missed deadlines or delayed programs can put you in regulatory crosshairs, and on a path to penalties, fines, lawsuits and damage to your brand. These are all negatives you want to avoid.
There is a better way.
I hear a lot of companies say “we think we’re doing it right but we can’t prove it.”
Repeatable, accurate and defensible processes
Automating your workforce compliance — and I’ve seen this time and again — keeps things from falling through the cracks and leads to predictable outcomes.
Here’s how it works: All of your compliance activities can be mapped to specified, definitive and repeatable processes, ensuring consistency within your organization. With automated scheduling, distribution and notifications, you’ll know that the right people are doing the right things at the right time.
A robust CMS system that is up and running for you 24/7 keeps employees, compliance officers and managers from having to constantly chase things down manually. No longer dependent on the human factor or spreadsheets stored on someone’s laptop, corporate compliance programs become significantly less work and frustration for your staff, as they are relieved of data entry, data tracking and file management.
When regulators come calling, automation provides compliance reporting at glance. An executive dashboard displays real time reporting and monitoring. Auditor’s questions can be answered with a click of a mouse versus days, hours, days or even weeks of compiling information.
And in daily office terms, what would happen right now—if you’re one of those companies still laboring in a manual compliance process environment—if your board or senior manager comes to you and ask for a complete report on the company’s compliance initiative? Automation provides the element of oversight that’s required of a responsible, auditable and defensible compliance management system.
As a client explained to me recently, that level of reporting is the crown jewel that not only gives you a level of confidence that your reporting is accurate, it also lets you sleep soundly at night.
As a client explained to me recently, that level of reporting is the crown jewel that not only gives you a level of confidence that your reporting is accurate, it also lets you sleep soundly at night.
Avoiding the big hammer
Eventually, most companies find themselves on some level of regulatory radar, regardless of their size. But a manual system actually creates an environment of risk. With an , you are mitigating risk. What is needed is a CMS that allows you to actually design, build, run and support all that is required in an efficient manner, and avoid the big hammer of non-compliance. Automation is really the only way to do that.
