Monthly Archives: November 2020

How prepared were Compliance professionals for Covid-19?

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On 2 April, Compliance Week published a survey looking at how prepared Compliance professionals and their firms were for the coronavirus pandemic.

The survey, carried out between 24 and 26 March, asked 365 Compliance professionals about their businesses’ preparations for the pandemic. Although the survey was carried out in the US, it has useful findings and learnings for businesses and their Compliance teams everywhere.

Nearly 10% (31 companies) said that their companies were ill-prepared (although on the plus side, this means that over 90% felt they were somewhat prepared).

Contrary to what you might expect, two-thirds of the 31 unprepared companies had between 1,000-10,000 employees and had international corporate footprints.

What did the better-prepared companies have in common?

65% of respondents rated their company’s response to the pandemic as excellent or good.

Those that felt they were well-prepared reported:

  • Being proactive – acting as soon as initial reports of the outbreak in China were received
  • Having existing plans in place for disasters, and swiftly adapting these to respond
  • Having strong leadership, who were transparent in their approach

Common approaches among the less prepared

Themes were also apparent among those who were less nimble in their response. Compliance professionals who felt their firms had handled their initial reaction to the crisis badly reported:

  • Leadership not taking the coronavirus threat seriously as it gained a foothold in China
  • Poor risk assessment practices that failed to recognise the pandemic’s potential to grow from a supply chain disruption issue centred elsewhere into a complete business shutdown
  • Business continuity plans that weren’t adequately developed or tested
  • Difficulties in moving office-based employees to remote working – particularly among banks and other heavily-regulated industries, in part due to data and other security issues
  • Communication issues, largely stemming from a lack of concrete plans and clear leadership. Many reported that their companies were ‘slow to relay vital information to their employees at a time of heightened uncertainty and anxiety’

Of those compliance professionals who ranked their companies’ performance ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’, 80% reported not having a current business continuity plan, compared to 44% of all respondents.

How are Compliance teams spending their time now?

However good firms’ preparation, the pandemic has had an impact on the Compliance function: two-thirds said that the work involved in managing and monitoring compliance had become more challenging since the pandemic started.

The survey asked what was taking up more time for Compliance teams now compared to before the pandemic. As shown below, educating and communicating with employees, executing business continuity plans and assessing/mitigating pandemic-related risks with their firm’s daily operations are the things that have most increased.

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Source: Compliance Week

The findings identify a robust company culture as another ‘marker of success’, saying that ‘If company leadership does not have a good rapport with its employees during normal times, it is not trusted to convey a hard truth in times of trouble’.

Those companies with already-strong cultures are ‘making good decisions and are being transparent’, Carrie Penman, chief compliance officer at NAVEX Global says. As a result, these firms’ employees are rising to the challenge they face.

Maintaining this strong culture is vital, not just for operations in the immediate future but so that businesses have a strong base and reputation to build on once the current situation reverts to a more normal (or ‘new normal’) footing.

Read more on Compliance teams’ responses and compliant cultures

If you want to read more, you can access Compliance Week’s reporting on the survey on their website.

Nothing in this document should be treated as an authoritative statement of the law. Action should not be taken as a result of this document alone.

We make no warranty and accept no responsibility for consequences arising from relying on this document.

How to minimise compliance risk in a remote workforce

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Over recent weeks and months, Compliance teams, like many other office-based roles, have adapted to a new world of work. The ‘stay at home’ guidance has seen Compliance professionals and their colleagues having to adapt overnight to remote operations.

This brings challenges to us all; carving out spaces, both physical and mental, in which to work at home; overcoming technical obstacles; maintaining a balance in work and home life; ensuring work can continue effectively.

There is an additional layer to these challenges; how can you keep track of regulatory compliance across a distributed workforce?

Ensuring your policies undergo the required review and approvals process can be a struggle at the best of times. When your key teams are working remotely, the challenge is magnified.

Here, we look at ways Compliance teams can ensure robust approaches to compliance, even in the ‘new normal’.

The challenges of compliance when working remotely

Enforcing regulatory compliance can be enough of a challenge when your workforce is in the office. When they are dispersed, how can you be sure that you are still compliant?

  1. Have – and communicate – clear processes

The first step in managing compliance, whether locally or remotely, is to have clear processes that everyone understands. Everyone should be clear, for instance, on the need for Compliance team approval before any materials are issued.

  1. Make sure everyone understands the rules

Now might be a good time to remind everyone. Some sort of remote training might help here – does everyone in your business appreciate the need for all content, not just printed materials, to go through the requisite approvals process? Do they know what a compliant sign-off procedure looks like? If not, look at whether you can run some training sessions online.

  1.  Improve collaboration – even when you’re not in the same place

Collaborating effectively on marketing projects improves efficiency, reduces unnecessary admin and duplication, and ultimately helps you.

  1.  Consider security

Data security has been particularly in the headlines since the shift to home working, with risk experts Aon calling remote workers the ‘weakest link’ in cyber security. 

Think about how you share communications – often containing business-confidential or even client-specific information – when people are working at home. 

Do you mandate the use of secure work emails? Are there rules about encryption of sensitive material? Are GDPR requirements met? All these issues are potentially exacerbated when teams are dispersed.

  1.  Could automation help?

We touched above on some of the challenges around sharing information securely. Being able to do this is just one of the benefits of collaborative solutions which enable teams, wherever they are, to work together on producing, reviewing and approving marketing collateral.

Automation can also help to avoid unnecessary and labour-intensive paper-based edits and make your compliance processes more robust, by mandating approvals, as well as creating an in-built audit trail. And by making your processes slicker, you can be more effective as a business.

Tackling an ever-changing list of compliance challenges

Regulation is always changing and increasing, while the wider environment (as this year has demonstrated only too clearly) brings its own challenges. 

For Compliance professionals, the need to keep pace with shifting requirements is a permanent companion.

Nothing in this document should be treated as an authoritative statement of the law. Action should not be taken as a result of this document alone.

We make no warranty and accept no responsibility for consequences arising from relying on this document.