Getting staff across the business to take responsibility for compliance can make the biggest difference to the effectiveness of compliance. However, it is also the most difficult thing for compliance managers to achieve. That’s according to new research from the compliance and risk management consultancy, The Risk Advisory Group.
Almost a third (30 per cent) of senior compliance professionals surveyed for the firm’s annual global Compliance Horizon report said that achieving staff buy-in is the biggest challenge they face in their role. Monitoring staff to check they are following company policies is their next biggest challenge (cited by 17 per cent). They find both of these more difficult than keeping on top of mounting levels of regulation and preparing the business to comply.
There is a real sense that the compliance department cannot operate in a vacuum and that it needs more support from across the organisation to be effective. The help required is neither more money nor more skills – 88 per cent of compliance professionals are confident of having the right amount of these – but a change in attitude. Some two-thirds, 66 per cent of senior compliance people said that employees taking greater ownership of compliance would have the biggest impact on their ability to protect the business to the level required. That would explain why company-wide compliance training is cited as a top priority for the year ahead.
More than half of survey respondents said that they will be turning to technology to improve the effectiveness of their compliance programmes. 59 per cent expect to use compliance technology more in 2018 than they do. They see the main benefits of doing so as improved efficiency (30 per cent) followed by transparency and traceability (27 per cent).
Comment
Rebecca Palser, Director, The Risk Advisory Group said, “Despite the challenges they face, the compliance professionals we spoke to were overwhelmingly upbeat. When asked to sum up the year ahead in a single word, they were most likely to say they were feeling optimistic, positive or confident. A new-found trust in technology could go some way to explaining this. This is the first year since we launched our Compliance Horizon report that technology has featured so prominently. We expect to see a corresponding rise in demand for our LUMA third party compliance management platform, as compliance professionals increasingly recognise the difference technology can make to their compliance programmes.”
About The Compliance Horizon 2017
The Compliance Horizon 2017 report is based on an online survey of 123 senior compliance professionals, by The Risk Advisory Group in September 2017. Respondents are from a cross-section of businesses in terms of size and sector and from all continents. The report is available to download at: https://www.riskadvisory.com/campaigns/compliance-horizon-2017.php.
