Please feel free to contact me anytime to share your thoughts. +1 612.357.1544 (Cell), +1 952.567.6215 (Direct), gerry.zack@corporatecompliance.org.
How many of you have heard a compliance officer state that “If I only ask employees to do what the law says, we’ll never be in compliance.” They fear that if they let people know where the line is, workers will instantly rush to it, and some, inevitably, will cross it. That’s definitely a risk, but there’s also a risk in being too cautious. For some areas of law, employees need to know what the line is, because that’s the standard the industry follows. If you keep them well behind the line, it’s sort of like telling them that they have to drive 10 miles an hour under the speed limit. They’ll always be late, lose trust in your veracity, and blame compliance for hurting the business.
Now, to be clear, I am not saying that extra care and even some level of redundancy is not wise when dealing with especially critical compliance issues, such as those involving patient safety and life-or-death scenarios. And in some areas, it is very good to set a higher standard than the laws or regulations require, whether it is out of an ethical commitment or in concert with a corporate strategy. In those cases, it is worth investing the extra time to explain why the company goes above and beyond.
In addition, having an “are you sure?” step that requires people to pause before proceeding right to the line, or requiring a second set of eyes to review the activity, is the prudent thing to do.
But there is an important difference between over-complying and being careful.
And it’s worse than simply losing credibility—as if that were not bad enough. The practice of “over-complying” is, more often than not, operationally inefficient. It is what gives internal controls a bad reputation—an impediment to progress and efficiency. It feeds into exactly what others say about the policies and procedures we propose: that we are harming the business, not protecting it.
If people aren’t complying, compliance professionals can help through training, clarification of policies and procedures, increasing awareness, and a myriad of other techniques. Don’t be tempted to try the over-compliance approach.