How to build a culture of compliance

In today's rapidly evolving environment, failure to effectively communicate and clarify changing compliance requirements can lead to disconnects in compliance. Consequently, the actions of individual employees or a small group can have a profound impact on the organization's compliance culture. This underscores the heightened importance of compliance training in a work model that represents a significant departure from what we've been accustomed to.

Reason behind the need of building a culture of compliance 

From government regulatory bodies to professional and ethical standards, organizations, and international quality assurance watchdogs, they all have mandates that participating organizations must comply with. Training the workforce in compliance yields other tangible and intangible rewards:

• Many compliance requirements typically enhance the competitiveness of businesses. 
• An organization that adheres to compliance standards is often esteemed within its industry and garners recognition from peers and customers alike.
• Although compliance may entail operational expenses due to training and implementation efforts, it also grants pricing leverage to compliant organizations. 
• Providing comprehensive compliance training to all employees helps prevent costly lawsuits, litigations, and regulatory penalties.

In fact, most businesses owe their very existence to compliance. Without being compliant, businesses might not have the legal standing to continue operating. Non-compliance by individual employees might jeopardize a company’s future, and therefore, instilling a culture of compliance through compliance training must be a part of every organization’s core training strategy.

Let’s look into the factors that can enable us to create a culture of compliance:

Organization cannot mandate a compliance culture, however it requires embracing fundamental change at all levels of the company, to embrace compliance: Shifting Mindsets Instilling compliance as an integral aspect of an organization's culture necessitates a shift in mindset, commencing from top-level management and permeating through all levels of the company.

Behavioral Transformation

Adopting compliance entails a fundamental shift in organizational behavior. Achieving compliance often demands not only a change in mindset but also tangible alterations in actions or behaviors.

Building Awareness and Purpose

Given the prevalence of remote work arrangements for a considerable portion of the workforce, it's understandable that employees may exhibit uncertainty regarding compliance and potentially engage in negative behavioral patterns. The most effective approach to address such lapses is by instilling a strong sense of compliance awareness across the entire organization.

Maintaining Momentum through Ongoing Learning

Compliance is an ongoing process and not merely a temporary or cyclical obligation. Therefore, it necessitates a continuous learning strategy to sustain compliance efforts over the long haul.

Individual compliance training programs fail to capitalize on all the aforementioned factors, thus proving inadequate in fostering positive behavioral changes throughout the workforce. The optimal approach to cultivating a corporate culture of compliance is to incorporate and embed it within a holistic training strategy. The most effective method to establish and uphold a culture of compliance is to integrate compliance seamlessly into a comprehensive corporate training strategy, thereby positioning it as a fundamental component. Anything less than this approach risks employees misunderstanding the significance of compliance within the organization and failing to cultivate the necessary positive behavioral changes to make compliance inherent.