Creating a compliance awareness culture in the workplace

Compliance Management awareness is a critical component that impacts any organization’s overall culture. The persisting success of every single organization is strongly influenced by how well it has defined its governance, risk, and compliance culture, both internally and externally. A solid corporate awareness culture of ethics and compliance is the foundation of an effective risk management program. The governing structures of an organization should not consider risk management a soft issue, as its weakness or strength has a lasting impact on the organizational performance and reputation. 

Creating a culture of compliance requires continuous vigilance, resources, and time to influence harmonization of beliefs and values with respect to the importance of the company’s regulatory obligations and internal policies and procedures. The compliance culture is characterized by mutual trust and shared perceptions of the importance of risk management. 

A compliance culture can be nurtured through several factors: 

1. Leadership Involvement

Management setting Risk and Compliance as a strategic objective and acquiring support and approval by the Board is a key milestone in fostering a compliance culture. This would exhibit - internally to employees and externally to clients, regulators, and competitors - the organization’s commitment towards ensuring a compliance culture within its business. Furthermore, the organization should have designated compliance officers to implement and drive the day-to-day compliance program. The involvement of compliance in projects, different forums and the tendering process would emphasize the organizations dedication to regulatory compliance, business ethics and integrity. 

2. Communication

Communication is also key and management engagement with staff and other stakeholders builds a resilient culture. The communication can come in the form of staff address, newsletters, and courtesy visits to stakeholders (supervisory bodies, clients, and business associates).  During these trying times where many countries are battling with the COVID 19 challenges, organizations must maintain a balance between the growing regulatory demands and the welfare of the general staff. Leveraging on technology (call diverting from office landlines to cell phones, video conferencing, creating staff groups through various messaging platforms etc.) can ease communication for staff to the delight of different stakeholders. Staff awareness and education (including soft skills) should be a priority for every organization, as empowering people through knowledge is half the battle towards compliance.

3. Technology

As the laws evolve and regulatory obligations increase, organizations need resources and a framework in place to build compliance practices into their everyday workflow. Management - with support from the Board - should take a conscious decision to invest in the company’s digitization infrastructure. Through digitization, administrative tracking will be enhanced, records can be easily retrieved, and mobile accessibility of data by clients, staff, and business associates will be facilitated, whereas data analytics for business decisions will be the order of the business. The benefits are not only for operational efficiency but shall also reduce the compliance risk by establishing control points for the different risk elements.

In conclusion, compliance management is an organization’s responsibility, requiring monitoring and reporting against a dynamic and seemingly endless array of regulations, rules, standards, and agreements. Each area of compliance comes with its own requirements and in many cases requires extensive knowledge of obscure technical subject matter and a detailed database for elements of compliance requirement, measurements, and reporting. Accountability, involvement, taking responsibility, and appropriate treatment of transgression are the core pillars of a mature compliance culture. Compliance should be viewed as one of the enablers to performance rather than a bottleneck to processes. 

Tinawo Malikongwa ǀ Compliance Officer ǀ Minet Botswana