Top 3 Tips for an Effective Compliance Program
Keeping up with compliance is a hassle. Period. But, regardless of how difficult managing compliance can be it is extremely important that organizations have effective compliance programs in place that educate and encourage a culture of compliance for their workforce. Anyone who is responsible for an organization’s Compliance, Human Resources, Operations, or IT Department ultimately struggles with day-to-day workforce compliance management challenges. From addressing internal and external risks, to coping with an ever-changing regulatory environment and keeping up with the necessary documentation, it is hard to stay on top of it all. Here are 3 tips to ensure your organization has an effective compliance program that your entire workforce will support.
Empower Your Workforce
Your employees ultimately want to do the right thing however they are often tested, not knowing where to find tools and information after their new hire orientation is over. The challenge for many organizations is learning how to create a culture of compliance for both management and employees that utilizes one system where your entire workforce can go to find the information they need at the time they need it. In today’s world of Google, the last thing an employee wants to do is ask their busy manager where their vacation policy is. They want to search for it and find it on their own. As an organization you want to empower your workforce with an easy to use system that spans across multiple departments and gives them one point of reference for all their compliance questions. Your workforce is dynamic and your compliance program needs to be supported by your executive and leadership teams to empower the workforce to have a culture of compliance.
Be Flexible
New laws, regulations, policies, trainings oh-my! It doesn’t take a genius to see how our workplace environment changes daily. According to a recent survey conducted by Deloitte on global organizations, businesses must have flexibility “in both their business models and compliance programs” if they hope to comply with an ever-changing regulatory landscape. Organizations need to have systems in place that support their compliance program and can communicate with the entire workforce, including third parties and contractors. We live in a mobile world where everyone expects people to react to change immediately. For example, I can tell the world on Twitter that I just got a hole-in-one with the ease and simplicity of a few finger taps. However if I need to communicate a new policy to my team, first I need to find the policy to send, then make sure I have the correct version, next figure out which groups of people I need to receive it to and who needs to be excluded, then figure out how I am going to track and record who has read it, so complicated and exhausting. The systems you use for effective compliance management need to be automated, easy to use and flexible so you can focus on your business and implement change. The next round of reforms is inevitable and so your business and compliance program must be able to adapt.
Address Various Areas of Risks
When it comes to risk and the C-suite, organizations need to be sure their compliance programs are up to the task. Your compliance program must be able to address compliance issues across the entire organization, multiple departments, and range from entry level employees all the way to the C-suite. If the online place that employees go to take their sexual harassment training is the same place they go to find a policy on working from home, you are already training them where to go if they have questions. Automated compliance programs allow you to create a hub for various areas of risk within your organization, housing policies, procedures, trainings and additional educational information.
Your workforce needs to be educated on what they can and cannot do. Empower them with the tools they need to learn so as an organization you can prevent risk as much as possible. Of course, we’ve just scratched the surface of what a compliance program can and should do. To learn more, check out the articles below.
Why leaders need to focus on how they treat employees
Survey: Boards are spending more time on risk
Analysis: Addressing your highest risk—The C-suite
