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Creativity and Compliance

Creativity and Compliance: Global Engagement Strategies

Where does creativity fit into compliance? In more places than you think. Problem-solving, accountability, communication, and connection all require creativity. Join Tom Fox and Ronnie Feldman on Creativity and Compliance, part of the award-winning Compliance Podcast Network.

Ronnie’s company, Learnings and Entertainment, utilizes the entertainment devices that people use to consume information in their everyday, non-work lives, and applies it to important topics around compliance and ethics. It is not only about being funny. It is about changing the tone of your compliance communications and messaging to make your compliance program, policies, and resources more accessible.

Today Ronnie and Tom consider global engagement strategies for a multi-national corporation.

Global engagement strategies encompass a broad and evolving discipline that requires innovative and adaptive mechanisms to effectively connect with a diverse, multinational workforce. Tom highlights the limitations of a “one size fits all” approach and the importance of incorporating engaging elements such as humor and entertainment in global engagement strategies. His perspective is shaped by the belief that it is more effective to tailor content to specific audiences, thus cultivating a library of diverse and engaging content.

Ronnie emphasizes the significance of employing a variety of creative and entertaining approaches, including humor, animation, music, and interactive elements. His experiences underline the notion that traditional methods may not always be the most effective and that leveraging different tools, even if it involves taking risks, can lead to a greater understanding and engagement in a global context.

Key Highlights:

  • Creative Engagement Techniques for Global Workforce
  •  Global Resonance: Music in Communication Strategies
  • AI-Enabled Multilingual Content Transformation
  • AI Subtitling: Cost-Efficient Global Content Localization

Resources:

Ronnie

Tom

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For more information on the Ethico ROI Calculator and a free White Paper on the ROI of Compliance, click here.

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FCPA Compliance Report

FCPA Compliance Report – Dr. Karen Jacobson on Bridging Cultural Divides for International Success

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. Today, I visited Dr. Karen Jacobson, a renowned expert in organizational leadership and communication. She provides guidance for compliance professionals around leadership.

Dr. Karen Jacobson is a seasoned professional with a rich background in healthcare, public speaking, and business consulting. Her perspective on effective leadership and communication in diverse workplaces is shaped by her experiences in war, the military, healthcare, and even her time as a competitive amateur ballroom dancer. Jacobson believes that effective leadership requires understanding and adapting to the needs of different audiences, tailoring communication to resonate with them, and being culturally aware. She emphasizes the importance of leaders adapting their language and communication style based on the audience’s behavior style, emotions, and level of understanding and learning about the customs, language, and etiquette of the cultures they interact with.

Join Tom Fox and Karen Jacobson on this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report to delve deeper into this insightful perspective.

Key Highlights:

  • The Power of Active Listening in Leadership
  • The Art of Navigating Generational Communication
  • Bridging Cultural Divides for International Success
  • Developing Middle Managers through Targeted Training
  • Understanding Generational Values and Communication Styles

Resources:

Karen Jacobson

Website

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Tom Fox

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Blog

Jessica Czeczuga on the Crucial Role of Board Oversight in Compliance Training and Communications

I recently had the opportunity to visit with folks from Diligent. We look down the road at key issues in 2024 in a podcast series sponsored by Diligent entitled Compliance professionals adapting to change: Industries, Regulations, and Beyond. I was able to chat with Nicholas Latham, Renee Murphy, Jessica Czeczuga, Yee Chow, and Alexander Cotoia. Over this series, we discussed compliance communications in regulated industries, managing conflicts of interest at the board level, the board’s role in compliance training and communications, navigating the current ESG landscape, and professional growth and mentorship in compliance. In this post, we discuss the role of the Board of Directors in compliance training and communications with Jessica Czeczuga.

Jessica, the Principal Instructional Designer at Diligent, emphasized the need for the board to underscore the importance of compliance, communication, and training and to provide messaging to employees that reinforces the significance of completing training. One of the key takeaways from the episode was the idea that the board sets the tone at the top. The board’s priorities are seen as priorities by the rest of the organization. By prioritizing compliance, communication, and training, the board can foster a culture of compliance and ensure that employees understand the importance of these initiatives.

Jessica also suggested that boards should consider providing messaging directly to the general population of their organization, highlighting the importance of completing training. This can help drive the messaging deeper into the organization and ensure that employees understand the significance of their training obligations.

We also discussed the need for boards to assess the effectiveness of training programs, particularly in multinational corporations. Computer access and language barriers should be considered when evaluating training effectiveness. By understanding employees’ challenges in different regions, the board can make informed decisions about training programs and ensure that they are effective and accessible to all employees.

Regarding board oversight of training, there are tradeoffs and challenges to consider. On one hand, the board must clearly understand the compliance program and what is required to support it. This may involve requesting additional metrics and information from the individuals responsible for training. The board can provide better oversight and support by having a deeper understanding of the program.

On the other hand, the board needs to strike a balance between oversight and micromanagement. Boards should trust the individuals responsible for training and compliance to do their jobs effectively. Micromanaging can hinder the effectiveness of training programs and create unnecessary bureaucracy.

We highlighted the importance of board oversight in corporate training and compliance. The board is crucial in driving compliance and training messaging throughout the organization. By setting the tone at the top and emphasizing the importance of compliance, communication, and training, the board can foster a culture of compliance. Additionally, the board should assess the effectiveness of training programs, considering factors such as computer access and language barriers. Balancing oversight and trust is essential for effective board oversight of training and compliance.

Ready for Purpose-Driven Compliance? Diligent equips leaders with the tools to build, monitor, and maintain an open, transparent ethics and compliance culture. For more information and to book a demo, visit Diligent.com

Join us tomorrow as we consider navigating the current ESG landscape.

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FCPA Compliance Report

FCPA Compliance Report – Ryan Lougheed on Teamwork and Communication: Lessons from Esports and GRC

Welcome to the award-winning FCPA Compliance Report, the longest-running podcast in compliance. In this episode, Tom Fox welcomes Ryan Lougheed, Director, of Product Management at Onspring.

Ryan Lougheed has over twelve years of experience in the Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) field, currently serving as the director of a platform at Onspring, a SaaS GRC platform and business process automation platform. Drawing from his background in esports, Lougheed believes that teamwork and communication are crucial in both the GRC space and the world of esports. He emphasizes the importance of effective and efficient communication, especially in high-stress situations, and believes that these skills can be carried over to a compliance-focused career.

In the context of esports, Lougheed explains that communication is vital in a team of five players and that professional esports organizations provide resources such as physical trainers and sports psychologists to support their players’ communication skills. He also notes that the esports industry is evolving, with larger companies creating brands around individual streamers and organizations acting as agents to help grow the streaming culture. Join Tom Fox and Ryan Lougheed on this episode of the FCPA Compliance Report podcast to delve deeper into the importance of teamwork and communication in GRC.

 Key Highlights

  • GRC Collaboration and Communication
  • Streamlining compliance with Onspring’s centralized platform
  • Streamlining Communication in High-Stress Compliance Situations
  • Leveraging Esports Skills for GRC Success

Resources

Ryan Lougheed on LinkedIn

Onspring

Tom Fox

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Blog

Improving Corporate Culture Through Podcasting

Podcasting has become increasingly popular over the past decade, providing businesses with a new and innovative way to communicate with their audience. In simple terms, podcasting is the creation and distribution of audio content that can be downloaded and listened to at a later time. Podcasts are typically distributed through various platforms, such as iTunes or Spotify, and can be downloaded and listened to via a smartphone or computer.

One of the biggest benefits of podcasting is that it allows businesses to connect with their audience on a more personal level. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, which often come across as impersonal and sales-driven, podcasts enable businesses to build a loyal following by offering valuable and engaging content. This can include interviews with industry experts, behind-the-scenes glimpses of the business, and informative discussions on relevant topics.

Now take these same concepts of audience engagement and apply them internally to an organization. What do you potentially have? A mechanism to engage your employees, to engender trust and improve your overall corporate culture. Do you think this is a crazy way to improve culture? Think again about all the advantages podcasting has in place already.

A major US consumer product company started a podcast and had corporate executives on it. Who were the biggest fans of the podcast? It turned out it was the company employees, many of whom had never met their corporate executives. This allowed the executives to be humanized in a way no number of town hall meetings or other similar corporate events could ever achieve.

One of the biggest advantages of podcasting is that it is a relatively inexpensive way to reach a large audience. Unlike traditional forms of internal advertising for a compliance function, which can be expensive and difficult to track, podcasting allows businesses to reach a global audience with minimal investment. This can be particularly beneficial for corporate compliance programs which want to engage their customer base (IE., employees) in a new way that are looking to build their brand and expand their reach.

Podcasting is a powerful tool that businesses can use to connect with their audience on a more personal level. By investing in the right equipment and software, corporations can create engaging and informative audio content that will help build their ethical brand (culture) and drive employee engagement. If you want a new and different way to talk to your employees, why not try podcasting.

In today’s world, podcasting has become an essential tool for businesses to reach out to their target audience. With the rise of social media and the internet, it is crucial for businesses to utilize all available platforms to promote their products and services. Podcasting is one such platform that has gained immense popularity in recent years.

Want some other options? How about a fully produced branded podcast series for your internal compliance function. It could be two 25–30-minute episodes per month, with the guest selected by your compliance team. This format allows your corporate compliance function to tell the story of its greatest asset, its people, through interviews. Cannot get out of the country to travel? Still working remotely? Your branded podcasts give you a way to reach your employees as we continue to struggle through the Covid-19 variants. You can use the branded podcast to tell the story of compliance successes in your organization; you can include other departments to share their successes too. As with the podcast storytelling series, it would be done in a collaborative manner working with your comms team.

Want to make some short and snappy compliance communications? How about ‘Compliance News of the Day’? Have a daily curated news show of 3-4 compliance stories with a short summary of the series and how it relates to a compliance perspective to your organization. Make it fun so your employees want to check in daily. When the DOJ comes knocking and asks how often you send out compliance communications, you can point to your Compliance News of the Day as a great starting point.

As a compliance practitioner, you should strive to bring more storytelling into your compliance messaging, training and communications. If you put the employee in the shoes of the person they’re watching, they will remember it, because they will see how it applies to their lives. Such training and communication experiences will last much longer than if you drone over a written policy or show a PowerPoint. This is “expanding your classroom.” Ronnie Feldman calls this bringing memorable storytelling to your compliance communications and training.

One of the significant benefits of podcasting for a corporate compliance function is that it helps create a personal connection with the audience. Unlike other forms of internal communications, podcasting allows businesses to speak directly to their employees in a conversational and engaging manner. This helps to build trust and credibility with the audience, which can lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.

Podcasting also provides businesses with an opportunity to showcase their expertise and knowledge. By creating valuable and informative content, corporate compliance programs can establish themselves as leaders in their company to help employees facilitate issues and not be Dr. No From the Land of No. This can help to engage employees.

Another significant advantage of podcasting is that it is a highly shareable medium. Listeners can easily share podcast episodes on social media platforms, which can help to increase the reach of any corporate compliance function. This can help to attract new listeners from your employee base, as well as increase engagement with existing ones.

Since you are only limited by your imagination in compliance, why not use some of that to be creative in your compliance  communications. Podcasting has become an essential tool for businesses to connect with their audience, establish themselves as thought leaders, and promote their products and services. By investing in podcasting, corporate compliance functions can create high-quality audio content that engages their audience and helps to achieve their ethical goals and improve the culture of any organization.

Finally, if you need any help starting a podcast, ping me and I can help you get started or provide you a turnkey podcast solution.

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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program Through Innovation: Day 5 – Communication to see Around Corners

The more you can operationalize compliance, the more it works to operationalize culture in your organization. It works for all levels of a company, literally from the Boardroom to the shop floor. The DOJ and SEC recognized this when they noted in their 2020 FCPA Resource Guide, “A compliance program should apply from the board room to the supply room – no one should be beyond its reach.” Yet culture can provide more than simply an ethical foundation, and it is also a part of the business foundation of an entity.

Using such an approach to communications allows a CCO to “see around corners” and can be one of the greatest strengths of a best practices compliance program. The reason is listening. Listening is a key leadership component, and there are certainly many ways to listen. You can sit in your office and wait for a call or report on the hotline, or you can go out into the field and find out what challenges employees are facing. From this, you can work with them to craft a solution that works for the company and holds to the company’s ethical and compliance values.

Using social media tools, a CCO can move towards Thomas’ next key ingredient of a successful corporate culture, which is trust. Thomas said, “I’m obsessive about the culture that we create specifically around trust, and this is an adjustment for some people when they come here. If you join our team, there’s trust by default here. That means you trust in the competence of your teammates. You trust in their intentions and what they’re saying. At some companies, the culture is that trust is earned over time, but that means if everyone in the organization says you have to earn trust, the amount of energy that actually goes into the trust-earning process is a distraction from our mission.”

Three key takeaways:

  1. A company can fail if it does not get its culture right.
  2. Using communications to “see around corners.”
  3. Trust works as a business strategy.

For more information, check out The Compliance Handbook, 4th edition, here.

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Principled Podcast

Principled Podcast – S9 E15 – The Key to Effective Training and Communications? Simplicity.

What you’ll learn on this podcast episode

Building a winning culture of ethics and compliance requires efficiency and effectiveness in all aspects of a program—including training, communications, and a code and conduct. But how do you ensure these elements all work together to create a meaningful and intentional learning experience? While also contributing to desired business outcomes? In this episode of LRN’s Principled Podcast, host Carolyn Grace explores why a deep understanding of curriculum design is essential to developing an effective program. Listen in as she speaks with Erick Sawyerthe chief ethics and compliance officer of Inhabit, (recently rebranded from Inhabit IQ), and Damien DeBarra, the leader of Curriculum Design and Communication Strategy in LRN’s Advisory group, about the learning curriculum they created by leveraging Inhabit’s code of conduct. 

Guest: Erick Sawyer

Erick Sawyer – Grayscale

As Inhabit’s chief ethics and compliance officer, Erick Sawyer leads the company’s day-to-day compliance operations to ensure Inhabit is in compliance with various regulatory requirements and employees are in adherence with internal procedures and policies. Erick creates strategic programs that are paired with tactical plans to positively impact customers and employees across the software ecosystem. Prior to joining Inhabit, Erick held various roles in legal, compliance, quality, and learning and development in the financial services industry. He has focused his career on bridging the gap between people and process to drive a culture of ethics and compliance, protecting the brand and reputation of leading organizations.

Guest: Damien DeBarra

Damien DeBarra – Grayscale

Damien DeBarra brings more than 20 years’ experience to the instructional design and strategic workforce planning spaces.  As the Leader in Curriculum Design and Communication Strategy at LRN, he focuses on creating training solutions that ensure business buy-in and connect hiring practices to day-one learning roll-outs. In the last few years, Damien has helped organizations such as United Airlines, Sun Life Financial, SITEL, Astellas, MFS Investments, and SAP create 90-day action plans for their solutions and develop supporting communication strategies. He has worked with over 200 clients in areas ranging from retail to pharmaceuticals, call centers to nuclear plant manufacturing. Prior to LRN, Damien spent more than nine years as the Learning Solutions Director and Head of Instructional Design at Interactive Services. He has also worked as an instructional designer at NCALT, Electric Paper, and Epic. Damien received his BA from Maynooth University.

Host: Carolyn Grace

Carolyn_Grace_Principled_Podcast

Carolyn Grace is a content writer on LRN’s global marketing team and co-producer of the Principled Podcast. She specializes in writing compelling stories about ethics and compliance that resonate across business segments, industries, and personas while hitting critical KPIs for traffic and engagement. Topics she frequently covers include ESG, data privacy and protection, DEI, the role of boards of directors and leadership, corporate training and e-learning, and ethical corporate culture.

Prior to joining LRN, Carolyn was a writer and content strategist at Thinkso Creative, a boutique creative agency in New York City. At Thinkso, she wrote internal and external communications for clients in technology, nonprofit, law, logistics, and financial services sectors. Before that, Carolyn conducted trend research and cultural strategy at Horizon Media, specializing in entertainment, travel, media and technology, health and wellness, and food and beverage categories. Carolyn graduated magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in American History and French Studies and a minor in Journalism.

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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program in Training and Communications – Envisioning Your Compliance Training Program

How can you begin to think through a best practices compliance training program? I asked Shawn Rogers, training guru, expert, and maven. Rogers advised that you ‘envision’ what your training would like as a first step. He stated, “A common mistake is jumping right to the question is which courses you want and how to deploy them. However, you must consider several things before building the program.”

You should develop some principles on what your compliance training will look like. A key way to start is by reference to the Training and Communications section of the 2023 ECCP, which states, “Prosecutors should assess the steps taken by the company to ensure that policies and procedures have been integrated into the organization, including through periodic training and certification for all directors, officers, relevant employees, and, where appropriate, agents and business partners. Prosecutors should also assess whether the company has relayed information in a manner tailored to the audience’s size, sophistication, or subject matter expertise.

Some companies, for instance, give employees practical advice or case studies to address real-life scenarios, and/or guidance on obtaining ethics advice on a case-by-case basis as needs arise.” Some of these principles include the following, What are the Guiding Principles of your compliance training? What are you trying to communicate? Is it a broad set of values you want to speak to every employee about what your organization stands for? As noted in the 2023 ECCP, a company should “examine whether the compliance program is being disseminated to, and understood by, employees in practice to decide whether the compliance program is “truly effective.”

Three key takeaways:

  1. The 2023 ECCP has a strong emphasis on compliance training.
  2. Create a set of Principles for your compliance training programs.
  3. You should always use the Guiding Principles of your compliance training program to make decisions.
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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program in Training and Communications – Asking Questions

Other than the skill of listening, asking questions is about as important to the compliance practitioner as any other that can be employed. Yet, equally critical is to ask the right question, which is an issue explored by Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman in their book entitled “A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life.”
Grazer is a well-known and successful Hollywood director who has directed such movies as Splash, A Beautiful Mind, and Cinderella Man. He believes that much of his success is because he asks many questions, and “Questions are a great management tool.” This is because “Asking questions elicits information” also “creates the space for people to raise issues they are worried about that a boss, or colleagues, may not know about.” By asking questions, you allow “people to tell a different story than the one you expect.” Finally, and perhaps most significantly, “asking questions means people have to make their case for the way they want a decision to go.”

You, too, can use this simple and straightforward technique to improve your leadership qualities in the compliance function. The reason that asking questions is so much better than simply giving orders is that you have a vast talented workforce to tap into to help you do business in compliance. But the how of doing a business process that is, or should be, burned into your company can be facilitated by possibilities that are out there in your employees’ minds.  360 degrees of communication allows you to create an atmosphere where nobody is afraid to ask questions. Perhaps equally importantly, no one is afraid to answer a question.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Asking questions is a great technique to elicit information.
  2. Asking questions creates the authority in people to come up with ideas, coupled with the responsibility for moving things forward.
  3. Create an atmosphere where employees are confident to ask or answer a question.
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31 Days to More Effective Compliance Programs

One Month to a More Effective Compliance Program in Training and Communications – Communication Across Cultures

A 360-degree approach to communications entails looking at all interactions as a way to interconnect. This means both verbal and non-verbal clues and hints. This concept can be beneficial in relating to and with cultures outside the U.S., as one of the most critical issues to a compliance function is breaking through a company’s internal cultural boundaries. In a  Harvard Business Review article entitled “Getting to Si, Ja, Oui, Hai, and Da,” Erin Meyer explained that “managers often discover that perfectly rational deals fall apart when their [business] counterparts make what seem to be unreasonable demands or don’t respect their commitments.” She laid out a five-point solution I have adapted for the CCO or compliance practitioner in communicating a compliance program across a multi-national organization. In its 2020 Update, the DOJ specified that when it comes to compliance training, a company must offer compliance training in the form and language appropriate for the audience.

Initially, look for as many cultural bridges as you can find, as it will help you understand what your international audience is communicating to you, in both verbal and non-verbal formats, during a wide variety of activities familiar to any compliance professional such as training, investigations or simple meetings where the compliance perspective must be articulated in any business setting. If you fail to have an understanding or even a person who can navigate these signs for you, here are five steps to help you out: 1) Adapt the way you express disagreement; 2) Know when to bottle it up and let it all pour out; 3) Learn how the other culture builds trust; 4) Avoid yes or no questions; and 5) Be careful about putting it in writing.

Three key takeaways:

  1. Communications in compliance must be largely drawn around trust.
  2. Look for as many cultural bridges as possible; it will help you understand what your international audience is communicating.
  3. One of the most critical issues to a compliance function is breaking through a company’s internal cultural boundaries.