Fostering a positive culture around compliance is one way in which HR can help to spread the workload. Building understanding across the firm of what needs to be done and why should ensure staff in all roles get ‘on board’ and operate in a way that supports compliance activities.
Try the following three approaches to create a compliance culture in your firm:
TIP 1: Get everyone up to speed
It’s not always obvious to individuals why things need to be done in a certain manner in order to meet compliance requirements. But without a clear understanding of why, it’s easy for standards to slip, steps to be forgotten, or processes to inadvertently be changed – and that can soon slip into non-compliant territory.
What HR could do is embark on an education programme that is appropriate to job functions and the level of compliance risk associated with the tasks undertaken in particular roles. Clearly everyone needs to have a basic understanding of areas such as health and safety in the office environment, client confidentiality and data protection. But not everyone will need to be familiar with the nuances of financial compliance requirements or court protocols, for example.
HR must ensure that everyone is up to speed on the compliance requirements relevant to their role in order to build understanding and buy-in to the required working standards and practices. And don’t forget this should be regularly refreshed and updates made when rules change. A good way to keep on top of individual learning and development linked to compliance is to utilise HR software to keep track – and create alerts for refreshes when due.
TIP 2: Embed compliance processes into day to day workflows
One proven way to change behaviours is to ensure the specific steps or actions required are built into the day to day activities. One example might be an automated prompt that pops up on the system when something needs to be done or checked. Once the activity is completed, it’s then ‘ticked’ as done and can then be tracked back as part of a compliance audit process at a later date.
Modern software systems used by law firms often have functionality built in to make this easy to accommodate. A good example is HR software which has specific functions to request consent for data to be held (as per GDPR legislation) and then acknowledgement when it’s been given. This makes it easy for the HR administrator to ensure they are automatically taking the correct actions when they are processing personal data.
TIP 3: Use software to help
Leading on from the point above, clearly, HR can make even more good use of software to help alleviate the compliance burden. HR is commonly tasked with keeping health and safety training records up to date; manage specific skills or professional development qualifications; and report back to the partners or external third parties about what has been done. All of which can be time-consuming and admin heavy – especially the reporting element. With appropriate software in place, compiling compliance reports is much faster and more accurate too.
One final word
The key to success with any kind of compliance activity is to make it seamless. Without obvious differentiation between compliance activity and other work, the compliance simply becomes part of ‘how we do things’ rather than an additional burden. When that happens, it means you will have achieved a ‘compliance culture’.
For further inspiration about how HR leads can achieve quick wins on compliance – and other core areas such as employee engagement – check out our FREE guide HR in the legal sector: New ways to address your core challenges.