One Easy Thing You Can Do To Make Your Compliance Program Better

You want to improve your compliance program but just don’t have the time for a total overhaul at the moment. Well, have no fear, because there are a few small tweaks you can make that can have a huge impact on your program. And the good news is that it’s easier than you think.

Step Back And Get An Effectiveness Review

Sometimes it can be difficult to take a step back from the day-to-day grind of putting out compliance fires, managing audits or answering leadership’s immediate questions. But at some point, it’s essential to get a high-level view or assessment of your compliance program’s overall effectiveness.

Do What the DOJ Says

When the DOJ is involved in investigations and/or resolutions it considers “the existence and effectiveness of the corporation’s pre-existing compliance program” and the corporation’s remedial efforts “to implement an effective corporate compliance program or to improve an existing one.” It makes sense to periodically (and on a regularly scheduled basis) to have a compliance program effectiveness review performed. Most organizations might do this internally on an annual basis and bring in an external set of eyes to perform such a review at least every three years.

Times Have Changed: You’ve Got to Prove Effectiveness

20 years ago, everyone was talking about creating a compliance program as an end-all-be-all, but just having a compliance program isn’t good enough anymore. You need to regularly assess whether it’s proving effective and your organization needs to have objective evidence and documentation that this is being done on a regular basis. And while this might seem like a lot of work, I promise once you do it the first time, it’ll become like riding a bike.

Download our free eGuide, 5 Small Tweaks that Could Have a Big Impact for your Compliance Program, for more ideas on how to easily improve compliance right now.