When it comes to governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), organizations need a compliance culture and an organizational environment where doing the right thing is second nature. In a compliance culture, employees prioritize integrity and transparency: They understand the importance of following laws and regulations, and are ready to uphold high standards.
Such a culture supports an organization’s effort to reach GRC maturity, establishing a shared understanding of the important role GRC plays in organizational success. This in turn drives business outcomes, as higher GRC maturity helps to foster improved decision-making and operational efficiency.
Businesses can take these actionable steps to cultivate a culture of compliance and enhance GRC maturity.
Understanding Compliance Culture
What is a compliance culture? Generally, the term refers to a set of values and practices, goals, and attitudes that together characterize an organizational environment. It means employees are doing the right thing because it’s right.
Compliance is a key component of the GRC framework. With a compliance culture, an organization ensures its activities adhere to laws and regulations, as well as to its own internal policies.
There are multiple benefits to establishing a strong compliance culture. Such a culture will help a company to avoid legal issues and to build trust with customers and other stakeholders. A strong culture around compliance helps build employee morale and retention: People are more committed when they know their actions align with company policies and procedures.
The Importance of Leadership and Commitment
Compliance culture starts at the top. Leadership is critical in fostering a culture of compliance, setting the tone in terms of values, attitudes, and behaviors. When leaders prioritize compliance and ethical behavior, they can inspire employees to do the same, creating a unified culture of compliance.
How can top management demonstrate commitment to compliance? Communication is key, as well as letting employees know how the compliance program works and establishing zero tolerance for certain behaviors. Leaders also need to set an example, demonstrating their commitment to compliance through their own actions: Through their honesty, dependability, fairness, and ethical strength.
Developing Education and Training Programs
To build a culture of compliance, organizations need to develop comprehensive compliance training programs. These will likely cover topics such as cybersecurity policies and procedures, auditing and compliance, and network and endpoint security.
Training may also incorporate systems and data security, physical security, incident management, and business continuity. Organizations can make the training effective and meaningful by incorporating innovative training methods such as gamification, workshops, and e-learning, all of which help to make training tangible — more than just a classroom exercise.
Establishing Clear Policies and Procedures
To bring to life that compliance culture, leaders need to establish clear, accessible compliance policies: People need to know what’s expected of them. Policies will help guide employees to take the right action and know they’re working in support of overall company goals.
It’s important to ensure that these policies are regularly updated and relevant. Laws and regulations are changing all the time, and compliance policies need to reflect that in order to be effective.
Strategies for Employee Engagement and Accountability
Organizations can implement several strategies to engage employees in compliance efforts. For example, they can “gamify” compliance by creating points, badges, and other “game” elements that make training more engaging.
Leaders can also be proactive with their employee engagements, using emails and in-person events as opportunities to reinforce their messaging around the importance of compliance. Communications teams can generate custom content amplifying those messages and establishing clear expectations so employees feel supported in compliance activities.
It’s also important to create a sense of accountability at all organizational levels. While senior executives are responsible for setting key policies, employees across the board — in legal, finance, IT, and elsewhere — all share in the accountability for GRC success.
Continuous Improvement and Adaptation
To make compliance culture real, organizations need to implement ongoing assessment and improvement of compliance programs.
Ongoing assessment and adaptation will help to identify gaps, and will improve risk management, by empowering organizations to proactively identify, assess, and mitigate compliance risks.
Continuous improvement demonstrates a commitment to compliance. It shows employees and other stakeholders that the organization is serious about meeting its obligations. A qualified partner can help as organizations seek to mature their efforts, whether in data protection or other key areas supporting GRC.Ready to advance your GRC maturity? Contact the experts at Insight Assurance
