The Compliance Life details the journey to and in the role of a Chief Compliance Officer. How does one come to sit in the CCO chair? What are some of the skills a CCO needs to success navigate the compliance waters in any company? What are some of the top challenges CCOs have faced and how did they meet them? These questions and many others will be explored in this new podcast series. Over four episodes each month on The Compliance Life, I visit with one current or former CCO to explore their journey to the CCO chair. This month, my guest is Rob Chesnut, whose most recent position was as the Chief Ethics Officer at Airbnb. He is also the author of the best-selling book, Intentional Integrity: How Smart Companies Can Lead an Ethical Revolution with St Martin’s Press.
In this fourth and final episode, we chat about what led Rob to write Intentional Integrity. We move to considering the future as Rob discusses where he sees compliance headed in 2025 and beyond? We also take up some of the projects Rob is considering. In a Special Bonus Question, Rob tells us how he is still able play basketball with your teenage son.
Day: March 23, 2021
The Human Resources and Compliance departments play a crucial role in building a healthy workplace culture to stay relevant and succeed.
Many organizations face significant structural deficiencies that fail to bridge the gap between Compliance and H.R. In terms of structure, most often, there is a failure in defining roles and responsibilities that tends to be confusing to the management, which looks inefficient or redundant.
Like a well-oiled machine, a company functions seamlessly if both H.R. and compliance functions are synched and compatible when power, resources, and procedures are strategically set without overlapping.
To further explore this underutilized program, I spoke with one of the unique people in the compliance space. An executive coach, strategic advisor, and keynote speaker described by Forbes as “one of the top coaches for legal and compliance executives.”
Amii Barnard – Bahn will add transparency as an H.R. professional to the compliance function to help accelerate compliance and legal executives’ success.
Major takeaways discussed in the episode:
● Compliance officers should be aware of the Human Resource functions, like recruitment, employee annual life cycle, performance reviews, and compensation. Being involved in the process ensures that the company is getting the right people and ensuring strong ethical standards. If unchecked, conflict of interests is embedded even in the employment application that goes unchecked.
● Set up a Helpline instead of a hotline which is friendlier and less scary. Doing so gives people the confidence to speak up comfortably, raise questions and report misconduct without fear. Encouraging transparency in the workplace creates a belief that the company takes action. More calls mean more confidence that organizational justice can be served.
● Positional authority isn’t the way to go and will not be useful in the future workplace. The pandemic has shown how the dynamics have changed, and good leadership and influence skills will get things done. Compliance officers should be critical of this going forward.
● Modern workers stay long in a company that they’re proud of and that they feel is doing good work. The compliance department should look at strategies and steps towards reaching out and connecting with their employees and participating if not taking a stand involving necessary and impactful causes.
DOWNLOAD the FREE Promotability Index® by Amii Barnard-Bahn. Text number is 44-222. The word is PROMOTEME.
About Thomas Fox:
Thomas Fox, the Compliance Evangelist®, is one of the leading writers, thinkers, and commentators on anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliance. In this latest edition of The Compliance Handbook, he continues to arm seasoned compliance professionals and those new to the realm with the practical, actionable guidance and tools needed to design, create, implement and continually enhance a best practices compliance program.
The “Nuts and Bolts” for Creating a Comprehensive Compliance Plan
The chapter of this unique work lays out a succinct yet thorough one month approach to operationalizing a company’s compliance regimen. Beginning with a section on what 2020 brought to the compliance landscape, each chapter methodically outlines best practices for everything from establishing policies, procedures, and internal controls, to assessing risk, training, handling investigations, and more. Each day ends with three key takeaways you can implement at little or no cost.
Order your copy OR copies of The Compliance Handbook: A Guide to Operationalizing Your Compliance Program. Save 25% off.
http://www.lexisnexis.com/fox25
Jehan Jeyaretnam is the Director and Head of Compliance Services at Acuity Knowledge Partners, one of the world’s largest knowledge process outsourcing firms. Jehan leads the Compliance Business Division, supporting clients with regulatory and anti-financial crime surveillance issues. Tom Fox welcomes him to this week’s show as they discuss ways of implementing knowledge outsourcing within work environments.
Knowledge Processing
Tom asks Jehan to define the term “knowledge processing.” Jehan explains that it is a point of view where you have the resources that are supported based on particular specialized knowledge. It’s an area where analytics and judgment reform is required, along with domain understanding and subject matter expertise. It is different from business processing in that it’s more than simply rules-led and considers knowledge offshoring functions.
The Four Pillars of Acuity
Jehan explains that there are four pillars of compliance within Acuity Knowledge Partners. He states that the company supports its clients by combining these four aspects:
- corporate compliance, which focuses on monitoring and surveilling communications and marketing materials;
- investment compliance and trade surveillance supports clients in the areas of investment guideline management from a market abuse perspective;
- anti-corruption financial crimes, which tackles due diligence for clients, transaction monitoring from an anti-money laundering perspective;
- forensic compliance, which takes a data science approach to compliance, while supporting clients who are based on-shore.
The Impact of COVID-19
Tom asks Jehan to explain how his approach to compliance has shifted or changed due to the pandemic. Jehan states that the area that needed to improve due to the pandemic was understanding how to continue supporting clients while maintaining the compliance culture around it. When employees are working remotely, it’s important to ensure that company culture remains embedded. Changing the model so that there’s enough surveillance and approachability is very important. From a business perspective, the pandemic caused Acuity to take more of a conservative approach to the compliance function with respect to budgets. The work volume increased, however, employees operating from their homes allowed for increased communication.
Do More With Less
Companies need to be thinking about processing in the next five years, and how it may evolve. One way that Acuity supports its clients is by helping them do more with less. They create dedicated teams that can support them, by taking away some of the workflows that can be done offshore in a more cost-effective way. Freeing up your onshore teams and employees will allow them to be able to readily adapt to the changing workflows, environments, and operations. Because Acuity has implemented this model, they have provided a certain amount of flexibility in their workforce. Jehan advises other companies to do the same. If you want to increase efficiencies you need to “create a center of excellence” by bringing all the aspects of compliance together.
Resources
Jehan Jeyaretnam | Twitter, LinkedIn
AcuityKP.com
In this episode we speak with Vivek Bhatt, Chief Technology Officer at Infotechtion, about charting the direction of your information protection and records management journey. Listen in as Vivek and Bhavy discuss the importance of identifying your company’s key success factors, developing a roadmap that quickly provides value to your business, and the lessons learned as teams embark on a more modernized approach to information governance.
Voices of Data Protection is a show about the latest processes and solutions to help you manage your data, keep it safe, and stay compliant. We talk with industry experts, leaders, and program managers from Microsoft to learn how digital transformation is accelerating the need for compliance, how organizations are navigating this new landscape, and learn best-in-class practices and solutions to get your organization started and bring compliance to the next level. Transcripts are available for all episodes. For more infomration, visit: https://aka.ms/voicesofdataprotection
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