Today’s organizations, whether a mom-and-pop shop, large corporate organization, or somewhere in between, must manage their businesses by some regulatory component. Regardless of industry, regulatory compliance can feel a bit daunting, complex, and even frustrating, as all industries have some class of regulatory guidelines by which to operate, and those guidelines can change over time.
Organizations need to have strategies in place to effectively navigate the constantly evolving regulatory environment to stay fully compliant and minimize risk to the business. Protecting your business, employees, and customers are key reasons to have an intentional approach to managing regulatory compliance changes.
This article provides key strategies for navigating an ever-changing regulatory compliance environment and driving adoption of the key behaviors and processes to maintain compliance.
5 Strategies for Navigating Regulatory Compliance
1. Be nimble and agile
Organizations must be responsive and act to meet a change in a regulatory requirement. Many times, when a requirement or guideline has been changed, there is a “due date” of compliance associated that organizations must meet.
Things to consider:
- How quickly can your organization respond? Does it take weeks, months, or a year or more to respond?
- Is your organization flexible enough to meet the required-by date within the changed requirement? What barriers do you encounter to responding quickly?
- What other changes are going on within the organization? Is there change fatigue or lack of awareness among key stakeholders?
2. Document the change process
Organizations should have a documented process outlined to help navigate the required change while ensuring their own associated policies and guidelines are updated. Having a set process and procedure in place to manage through the change is important. Not only will it help to ensure your business is responding to the regulatory change, it also provides a clear roadmap of the steps involved to those who are involved in implementing the change.
Things to consider:
- What does that process look like?
- Does everyone know their role within the process? Who is involved? Who is leading?
- What systems might be impacted? What associated policies are impacted? What are the input and outputs?
- Do you have the specific steps laid out?
- What does the review process look like?
- Is a testing process needed?
- What are your success criteria? How will you determine if you met the requirement?
- How will you manage scope, issues, and business decisions associated with the change?
- What project management processes will you follow?
3. Assess stakeholder readiness
People are a key ingredient for the successful implementation of regulatory change. It’s important to identify not only the stakeholders who need to be involved in the process side of the change, but also the stakeholders who are impacted by the change. These could be your internal and external customers, employees, shareholders, providers, etc.
When involving key stakeholders who are necessary for the change, it’s critical to document the key roles within the organization to ensure nothing is missed with implementation.
Consider involving the following key roles:
- A Business Sponsor who guides and makes critical decisions
- A Legal or Compliance Partner who interprets the change and its impact
- Member of the IT Team who manages the IT systems impact
- Member of the HR Team who manages the people impact
- Member of the Finance Team who can track budget and cost impacts
- Member of the Sales and Operations Team who can update processes based on the change
- A Project Manager familiar with regulatory changes who can keep everyone on track
When notifying stakeholders who are impacted by the change, make sure you share a detailed implementation plan that lays out key changes, as well as stakeholders and resources impacted. Target those who need awareness of the change rather than sending an email blast to everyone internal and external.
Things to consider:
- Do all your employees need to know, or just a particular segment, department, or group/sector?
- Do you need to target a certain management group or level of management?
- Which customer segment/policy holder is impacted?
- Are your suppliers impacted?
- What do your shareholders need to know?
4. Prioritize adoption
Like any large implementation, an organization must determine the training needs for each impacted stakeholder associated with the compliance change. Training is more than a one-time event; whatever that training looks like should be supported by an adoption strategy and communications plan. Determine who needs to be communicated to when, about what, and how. This will be key to preparing the impacted people for the change.
Things to consider:
- Can you utilize a simple communication or eLearning solution?
- Do you need to do a webinar or video recording to illustrate how something works? What does that look like for your compliance changes?
- Is sign-off required for each employee to convey that they have understood the training and they will comply with the change?
- Do you have to do any reporting to the local, state, or federal agency?
5. Regularly audit
A compliance audit plan helps organizations ensure they are minimizing risk and keeping current with the rules and guidelines. Conducting audits on a regular basis allows the organization to assess how well they are doing or where they need to address gaps.
Things to consider:
- What is your compliance baseline?
- How often will you audit? Who will audit?
- How will you communicate audit findings and to whom?
- How will action items be closed?
- How are you tracking violations and impacts to the organization?
Final Thoughts
Regulatory compliance for system implementation can be complex. Nevertheless, setting up strategies to support your organization’s readiness and adoption will allow you to navigate it to minimize risk and cost to your business. Diligence in this area plays a critical role to protect your customers, employees, vendors, and the character of your business. Compliance with regulatory affairs is a small investment to ensure an organization’s success in the short and long term.
Want to connect with Terri about navigating regulatory compliance? Fill out the form at the bottom of the page, or reach out to hello@tier1performance.com.
