Suhail Farooqui Founder Zarca Interactive

By now, we have all come to terms with the fact that corporate compliance is here to stay for good. In simplest terms, compliance is ensuring things are as they “should be.” This article explores ways in which managers and executives can keep a close watch on their company’s compliance readiness and compliance status using online survey tools, while increasing employee confidence and trust at the same time.

Even though ensuring things are as they “should be” sounds like a fairly straight-forward concept, the complexity and size of most organizations make its practical implementation difficult. A simple but powerful way many organizations are approaching this is by surveying employees who are responsible for key areas.

Two main types of surveys being deployed in key areas are:
1. Employee Readiness Surveys, which measure professional abilities of individuals who are in-charge of work areas that require compliance; and,
2. Employee Assessment of the State of Compliance.

If employees are unprepared to meet requirements, either through lack of knowledge or training, no amount of pressure from management will bring about compliance. A Employee Compliance Readiness survey asks employees to self-evaluate their understanding and preparedness to meet the challenges associated with compliance. Such surveys can and must be administered at regular intervals to enable proper resource allocation for training and education programs and any gaps in knowledge, capability or competence.

The “State of Compliance” surveys require that employees directly or indirectly report on the specifics of their area of business operation.
Data from such compliance surveys should be used in two distinct ways:
1. Exception Reporting; and
2. Level of Compliance/Readiness Tracking

Exception Reporting is the ability of the survey tool to flag responses which contain actual or potential risks to compliance. This point is better illustrated through a real-life example. CFOs are acutely aware of the consequences of errors and misrepresentations in their 10K and 10Q filings. Yet, in large organizations with hundreds of sales executives, how does the CFO’s office ensure that no account or sales executive has made verbal promises or representations to new clients that are not consistent with the company’s capabilities?

Increasingly, CFOs are doing this through online surveys which require mandatory response from every account and sales executive in the organization. The simple survey consists of a series of yes/no questions and any response containing a selection that is equivalent to non-compliance or is worth further investigation is instantly flagged to the CFO and other members of management and executive teams.

Such exception reporting is time-saving and allows for rapid identification of risky situations and scenarios in a proactive and timely way.

Compliance Readiness Tracking enables organizations to track both the effectiveness of their compliance programs and the impact of their investment in such activities at the same time. By defining and tracking these metrics, executives can make a case for ongoing budget needs and continue on with or switch vendors and contractors.

Automation
Until recently, keeping track of people who reported data for various areas of compliance was an arduous task. It required manually sorting through numerous submissions to find questionable responses, and then listing them for internal, and in some cases, external investigation. The appropriate oversight person internally would then make a number of phone calls to track down these individuals across different regions and time zones, which was a cumbersome task at best.

On-demand intelligent survey tools now make this process require significantly less effort and take a matter of days and weeks to deploy, rather than weeks to months. These innovative tools have built-in capabilities which send reminder emails automatically to those responsible for reporting back status until they respond.

Through automation, a planned set of assessments are scheduled, enabling the process to run on its own. Executives are informed only when the system recognizes specific response criteria, thereby eliminating the task of looking through endless responses.

Collaboration
Regular surveys on readiness and status of compliance send a strong message to all employees about management’s commitment to compliance issues. For maximum effectiveness such surveys should have executive sponsorship.

Specific and critical findings must be shared with the affected employees and departments and remedial action must be taken immediately. Broad findings, both good and bad, must be communicated to the entire organization.

When significant necessary changes are identified, it is essential to communicate what steps management will take in an effort to address these gaps. Surveying on a regular basis, and communicating the findings in an effort to address and mitigate the readily identifiable gaps, enables management to build an enhanced culture of trust with employees which makes compliance the responsibility of the entire organization and not just the traditional top-down responsibility it tends to be.

Given the complexities associated with ensuring compliance there is a need for systematic capture and review of large amounts of data pertaining to revenue, expenses, and risky assets and processes. Online survey tools provide a cost-efficient, time-saving medium to accomplish this giving executives and managers insight necessary to address their risks proactively.