Corporation compliance recorder business programs division

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More about Special Filings. Call Us Receive Updates Sign up for e-updates. Ideally, this audit is performed by an independent third party, but not every company has the budget. If not, you can start with using your own internal resources to scope out the relevant issues. And the list can go on and on, depending on the type of business you operate and its geographic location s. To conduct a useful audit, interview employees from across the different lines of business and staff groups.

It can seem daunting to start from scratch, especially when conducting this audit on your own. You can embellish the program later after the most immediate issues are dealt with first. Once your compliance department is established, periodic third-party audits of the function and its effectiveness can be very helpful and valuable. In fact, there is a growing debate about whether the legal department should run compliance or not.

Regardless of where it sits, the compliance function should have a direct line into the CEO and the Board of Directors, typically through the audit committee. There should be nothing between the compliance officer and reporting issues to the highest authority in the company.

Additionally, it is crucial that the compliance officer have the staff and resources to do the job properly. Nothing fails faster - or looks worse to an investigator or regulator - than an understaffed, underfunded compliance department. The most important document for a compliance function is the employee code of conduct sometimes called a business ethics policy. This document sets out expectations for all employees along with which behaviors and practices will not be tolerated.

If there is no compliance department, it is probably overdue for an overhaul and should be number one on your to-do list. Likewise, a compliance department needs policies and procedures, including its process for conducting internal investigations and how it will report out results. Preparing a core set of these is number two on your to-do list. A common misperception is that the compliance department is responsible for all compliance. As you probably know, many different groups within the company are responsible for various aspects of compliance.

In this role, job one is determining whether all areas of company risk are sufficiently covered and, if not, how to incorporate them into the overall compliance program and determine which group is responsible. Job two, then, is to establish regular meetings of the different groups to ensure coordination between them, along with sharing best practices, common issues, and so forth. One of the most important tasks for the compliance officer is to create the right policy to ensure different compliance issues are routed to the right group and there is no duplication of effort or groups operating at cross purposes.

Finally, the compliance officer must ensure there is a reporting process to the C-Suite and the Board, so they are aware of material issues before they become a public headline. Similarly, the Board will probably want regular reporting of what compliance issues came in and how they were handled. Reporting to the Board is a great place to utilize benchmarks, so they can see how the company compares in terms of number of complaints, type of complaint, and other similar metrics.

One common mistake when it comes to compliance issues is forgetting about foreign locations. There are a few considerations needed to ensure compliance with international offices. First, if you have foreign locations, you need to translate your code of conduct, training, and other materials into the primary language of those locations if not the same as headquarters.

Second, get input from your foreign offices about how effective the policies and training are, and if there are any local compliance issues not properly covered by the main policies and procedures. Third, find ways to underscore the importance of compliance at remote offices. Finally, be sensitive to cultural differences when it comes to compliance. In some cultures, whistleblowers are viewed poorly, so relying on them to come forward presents challenges. Consequently, a robust training program is a must.

Where possible, make training fun. The gamification of compliance training is growing and is especially effective in terms of ensuring employees take the training and retain the information.

One thing to always keep in mind with training is keeping it simple. Complex legal concepts are lost on the employee base. Go for big issues, in easy-to-understand language and examples.

Save the law school exam-level training for your legal team. When training employees, ensure there is emphasis on the spirit of the law as much as there is on the letter of the law. Employees should understand that the company wants them to do the right thing, and compliance makes the company better and keeps it from getting entangled in lawsuits or regulatory actions.

Here are a few ideas for troubleshooting:. Crucial to any compliance program is ensuring employees understand when they need to report something and how to do so. The code of conduct should contain a section describing all the ways employees can raise issues, including a toll-free hotline, a monitored compliance email address, their manager, the general counsel, the head of HR, and so forth. Focus on making it as easy as you can for employees to raise issues.

It is equally important the company have and enforce a non-retaliation policy and make sure every employee knows there will be no retaliation for bringing forth a good- faith issue. Likewise, ensure there is a general policy around ensuring confidentiality for both the person bringing the complaint and any employees implicated by a complaint. When a complaint comes in, there should already be a preset process for how it will be investigated. There should be a mechanism to report back to the person raising the issue, so they know the company took the complaint seriously and investigated it.

Finally, there must be consistent punishment for any employee found in violation of the code of conduct, including executives. If there are different outcomes for different employees, there will be little faith in the process. Lack of faith in the compliance process is deadly.