SourcePop quiz: what does compliance mean to your organization?
If your answer is little more than a shoulder shrug, it’s time to get your hands dirty.
Ever-changing business regulations and a growing global economy further signal the need for modern companies to make compliance a major priority.
That said, making it happen isn’t just as simple as flipping a switch and walking away.
Quite the contrary, actually. Getting your entire company on board requires you to reassess your entire organization from top to bottom. While the process doesn’t necessarily have to be complicated or expensive, it does need to be thorough.
But what key details deserve the attention of your business to make compliance work for everyone? Keep the following four in mind, for starters.
Investing in Smart Solutions
The notion that compliance is complex is most definitely a double-edged sword.
On one hand, understanding the various ins and outs of regulations can indeed feel like reading hieroglyphics to unfamiliar employees. But on the flip side, pushing the idea that compliance is a messy, high-level concept does nothing but extinguish people’s interest in the subject.
That’s why more and more companies are investing in automated software for reporting compliance to both streamline and simplify the concept internally. By having a solution do a good chunk of the legwork, workers can focus on the details of compliance that impact them versus the nitty-gritty.
Building a Compliant Culture
Making compliance integral to your company culture can be a massive help, but is likewise easy to overlook. Just as businesses today stress empathy and happiness, they should also emphasize the fact that staying in line with industry regulations is a requirement.
Workers should be familiar with best practices of their respective industries, but also understand that working for your company comes with the expectation that they’ll follow those practices.
For the sake of protecting their own jobs and making the company as a whole stronger, “selling” the importance of compliance to employees doesn’t have to be rocket science.
Vetting the Best Employees
Perhaps the best way to ensure that your workers have adopted a compliance-first mindset is by hiring people who already understand the importance of legal safety in the workplace. Not only should you look out for common hiring red flags, but also your potential hire’s existing familiarity with compliance in the workplace.
Anyone who displays a squeaky clean history and seems trustworthy is light years ahead of someone who simply doesn’t see the value of following the rules.
Assigning a Head of Compliance
Last but not least, having someone serve as the sort of figurehead for compliance and regulations gives your office a sort of go-to for questions and concerns. The role of compliance manager is incredibly important for keeping your coworkers’ minds at ease and also protecting your organization as a whole.
Given that such a role requires great responsibility and accountability, whoever takes up the job needs to be knee-deep in compliance and risk data.
Putting compliance higher on your company’s totem pole is definitely becoming an expectation for modern companies. By integrating these four principles, you can make it happen sooner rather than later without missing a beat.
