ADVICE & OPINION
COMPLIANCE
MEASURING ETHICS AND COMPLIANCE
PROGRAMME EFFECTIVENESS
Susan Divers, Director of Thought Leadership for LRN, leads LRN’s advisory
strategy, helping companies build values-based, ethical corporate cultures
that inspire principled performance and responsible workplace behaviour
and ensure compliance with all international, national and local laws https://lrn.com
Leaders and employees alike wonder if
we’re over the hump of the pandemic, if
life is slowly returning to normal and if we are
now entering a new era of living and working.
Our organisation, LRN, recently published
our annual Ethics and Compliance Program
E ectiveness Report(i), reflecting the input of
ethics and compliance professionals on a global
scale. The report compiles insights from our 27
years of research alongside thousands of other
organisations worldwide and provides critical
insights for navigating issues like the pandemic.
It provides five post-pandemic trends.
Companies are relying upon their values
As the work-from-home culture progressed through
2020 and 2021, many leaders were concerned that
workers would be inclined to slack o . Since it’s
also harder to “control” employees when everyone
isn’t in the same building, leaders expected to
enforce stricter rules. Our research found that
organisations relied principally on values rather
than rules to motivate employees to do the right
thing in unforeseen circumstances. Additionally,
workers are more likely to leave if they feel that they
aren’t trusted to work. Emphasising the company’s
purpose, showing respect, and tolerance for the
challenges employees face is more e ective than
commanding and controlling. Doing so increases
14 JULY 2022
the possibility that workers may be more open to
any constructive criticisms as well.
Making decisions that find a middle ground
leads to better relationships between workers and
employers
As much as employers may not admit it,
employees have entire lives outside of the
workplace, meaning they may have challenges or
problems to address. The pandemic was a perfect
example of people being overwhelmed due to what
was occurring in their personal lives and impacting
their approach to work. It’s important to keep
considering this when making decisions expected to
impact the company as a whole. Our 2022 research
dramatically demonstrates that an overwhelming
majority of leaders have responded by increasing
employee focus and engagement when making
critical decisions. Don’t assume that employees
will fall in line to implement significant changes if
leadership does not consider the impact on workers’
personal lives; if you’re open and honest with your
sta , it’ll build support and avoid a mass exodus.
Tying up internal loose ends helps compliance
Make life easier by tying up loose ends to your
internal processes, a task that fell o the priority list
during the pandemic. For many companies, it was
far overdue before the start of the pandemic, as well.
Making company processes and procedures simpler,
more accessible, and easier to use
reduces the burden on employees
and helps boost compliance. This
includes everything from onboarding
to expense reports to HR
systems and project management.
Putting o these simple and o en
trivial updates can have a huge
impact when government or board
reporting is needed.
Making hybrid/virtual work—and
supporting it, is the norm
Working from home during
the pandemic has been widely
reported as one of the few
benefits for those working at
an o ice. Although employers
In association with
expected workers back onsite full time as COVID
cases declined, it’s now clear that permanent
flexibility is a priority for many employees. Data
from LRN’s 2022 Program E ectiveness Report
shows that organisations, particularly those with
high-performance ethics programmes, are adapting
to this new normal a er a period of hesitation.
Globally, 68 per cent prioritise making it easier
for employees to engage, no matter where they
work. Fi y-nine per cent of all respondents plan to
design training using virtual platforms from now
on. Focusing on flexibility and making it easier for
employees to work should be a requirement for
businesses now and in the future.
Risk review is now more than an annual process
One of the biggest challenges of the pandemic
was the risk of exhausting current systems and the
unknown future ahead. Leaders were repeatedly
asking essential questions and constantly reviewing
plans. By continually asking: did our approach to
this aspect of the pandemic work well, and if not,
what can we do to improve impacted many, if not
all, aspects of risk within the operation.
During our research of our Program E ectiveness
report, we found that many of the risks anticipated
by respondents last year lessened or did not
significantly materialise to the degree expected,
likely because of their continued discussion or
review of the issues. For example, the percentage of
respondents worried about less e ective oversight
and monitoring as a result of remote work declined
from 56 per cent to 18 per cent of those surveyed.
Similarly, the percentage of those concerned
about increased misconduct due to remote work
arrangements declined from 56 per cent to 20
per cent of those surveyed. These shi s illustrate
organisations’ ethical cultures emerged from the
pandemic stronger and more e ective.
To conclude, make sure that you review your
company’s response to the pandemic and identify
the lessons that you can learn from this to use in
the future. And keep reviewing risks and asking
questions regularly, not annually, to ensure you are
an e ective steward of your company’s operations
and assets.
(i)https://pages.lrn.com/2022-pei-report
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