How to Create a Successful Compliance Program for Your Business

Compliance is crucial to the success and longevity of a business. Corporate compliance is about creating a culture in the workplace that promotes correct conduct and values principles and honesty. Your bespoke program should be carefully planned and implemented with complementary training programs to ensure employees are clear on all aspects of the program.

If compliance is not correctly managed, a business can be fined or sued and reputations can be ruined. The Senior Managers and Certification Regime (SMCR) is a newly developed part of compliance, aimed to hold senior managers to account if any issues arise. For further information about what SMCR can do for your business, click this link –  People Clear SMCR.

Teamwork is the answer to success

It’s important to get your team on board with the process, nominate compliance officers to lead the training, enforce rules and hold staff accountable if needed. The compliance officers need to be empowered to act quickly if needed. To give them the best knowledge, they will need transparency on all systems and processes as well as access to the governing body.

How a compliance program works

To be a successful program, your leadership team needs to show a good example and follow the rules. They should lead by example, promote good behavior and talk openly about the importance of compliance in the business. It’s the leadership team’s responsibility to encourage employees to be aware of and, if necessary, report unethical behavior.

Managing the level of risk

To create a successful and reliable program to support your business needs, you’ll need to understand the areas in which compliance poses the highest risk. Once identified, these areas can be addressed and assessed in more detail. It’s recommended that risk assessments should be reevaluated annually to ensure compliance programs are kept updated.

Why does your compliance program need to be successful?

An effective compliance code of conduct can help set expectations for good behavior. A code of conduct denotes who is responsible for managing the program, explains how an employee should report misconduct as well and detailing any disciplinary measures for breaking the code of conduct.

Once areas of risk have been identified and policies have been established, the next step is to create procedures to make sure that employees can follow policies with ease. Introducing training schemes and guidelines will make sure employees have the knowledge needed to identify issues of non-compliance.

All employees should be trained on relevant laws, policies, and regulations. Some specific employees may work in high-risk areas and therefore may need more tailored training. It’s useful to document employee training and keep track of records using software where employees can complete online training and tests.