Establishing an effective ethics and compliance program can help your organization at difficult times. Why? Compliance risks evolve and change. Laws and regulations are complex. The employee populations have different languages and cultures. Mergers and acquisitions require integration into the program. And misconduct can happen anytime, anywhere.
When it comes to start-ups and small businesses, having one or two people create a division is more than enough. But not for large organizations with hundreds of people. What are the key steps to be effective and impactful if you find yourself in this situation? Here are five essential tips that can help you.
- Identify the risks
- Train in ethics and compliance
- Create ethics and compliance officers
- Strategic team building
- Be user-friendly
Identify the risks
It’s easy to get held up in a barrage of issues and questions related to ethics and compliance. But it is key to understanding the organization’s compliance risks and mitigating them as effectively as possible. Firstly, you need to understand and identify the various risks related to ethics and compliance. Some of them are:
- Financial regulations
- Pharma/FDA protocols
- Bribery
- Money laundering
- Antitrust
- Sexual harassment
Plan your ethics and compliance program to address and prioritize the most serious risks.
Train in ethics and compliance
Just information regarding the ethics and compliance rules and regulations is not enough. People need to be trained in them too. Insurance, pharma, and financial services require employees to be extra careful. Even if training everybody completely may not be possible, train the employees in the fundamentals at least. You can equip them with the necessary tools and technologies that can help them determine further issues.
Create ethics and compliance officers
Every office or business needs a set of ethics and compliance officer among the employees. They can monitor or report any sort of anti-ethical behaviors, transactions, or activities that can damage the company. These officers can focus on individual responsibilities to work according to company values. Compliance officers can collaborate with multiple departments within the organization to ensure safety.
Strategic team building
Every ethics and compliance team needs to be selected strategically. Having managers or people from the leadership inside can help speed up the procedures and ensure clarity and security for the employees. Since this team can also be used to uplift the culture and work ethics of the company, sparing ample resources and importance to the team can be beneficial.
Be user-friendly
Many ethics and compliance programs do not produce the desired results due to the members being rough to the employees. Always try to be user-friendly and approachable to your co-workers. This attitude helps maintain the business ethics in the company along with high motivational levels. utilize simple documents and instructions so as to not overload and confuse the ethics and compliance team members.
Share with us how your company views the ethics and compliance programs and tackles the issues related to them in the comments below.
