Setting compliance standards only makes sense if your employees are willing to follow all of the rules you’ve set. Use these techniques to make it easy for workers to help your company stay compliant.
What is corporate compliance and why is it important?
Whether you’re in the construction, manufacturing or finance industries, corporate compliance is an essential part of operations.
So what is corporate compliance? Simply put, corporate compliance is how your employees follow the policies set internally by your company and adhere to the laws and regulations enforced by the federal and state governments.
So, why should you care about corporate compliance? For starters, maintaining corporate compliance helps your company avoid and detect any violations; saving you from expensive fines and lawsuits. Case in point—from 2016 to 2019, the OFCCP helped workers receive more than $81 million in employment discrimination lawsuits.
Yet beyond lawsuits and fines, corporate compliance sets expectations for how your employees should act at work, eliminating the need to constantly correct behaviors which helps everyone focus on the big picture. But for corporate compliance to be effective, your employees need to do their part by completing training or adhering to the standards you’ve set. Take steps to make sure your compliance procedures and processes are being followed.
Put Policies and Procedures in Writing
To maintain compliance, your employees need to know exactly what’s expected of them. Putting your policies in writing clearly tells them what they can or cannot do. Putting those written policies as part of your onboarding requirements ensures your employees read and understand them from day one. Every employee should be able to answer the question, what is compliance, and what does that mean for our organization?
A smart onboarding system can keep track of your employees’ compliance by automating requirements like sexual harassment prevention training and reading the company manual. As your new hires go through the onboarding process, the system tracks the materials you’ve required to be reviewed, notifying you when they’re completed. But beyond that, a great onboarding platform will:
- Make expectations and progress transparent
- Put compliance-focused milestones front and center
- Set due dates and reminders
- Pull in relevant team members so everyone has a view into the progress of an employee’s training
- Include necessary safety training and company culture
Put Training at Your Employees’ Fingertips
To make sure your employees are compliant, you need to give them the tools and training necessary to keep them that way. On-demand training and corporate compliance programs make it easy for the company to stay up to date on safety regulations, new software, new practices and policies. Plus, it is how most prefer to learn. According to LinkedIn, 58% of employees like to learn at their own pace and more companies recognize digital learning as the way to accomplish that.
A learning management system simplifies safety and training programs by offering:
- Simple, on-the-go storage of earned safety certifications
- Easy-to-track learning milestones
- Massive library of necessary courses, including eight OSHA training courses
Reward for Compliance
Another option for ensuring compliance is to reward those people who go above and beyond to make sure they’re updated on policies and following the rules. Some compliance is mandatory (like OSHA and safety regulations) but when employees take the lead on maintaining that compliance, they should be rewarded.
Offer incentives for completing training early, like giving gift cards or extra PTO. Or make a game or friendly competition out of finishing training materials or reviewing new policies with the winner receiving special accolades. No matter how you decide to reward your employees, compensation helps get them on board with compliance.
A compensation management system helps automate how you reward employees based on your specific set of parameters. It can also be used to manage salary increases, bonuses and compare market data. Rewarding high performers not only ensures your compliance requirements are met but helps with your retention needs.
Using a smart HR system helps maintain compliance without taking you away from all the other tasks on your list as an HR professional. Our automated system offers no-hassle solutions that save time while helping you accomplish all your workplace goals.
To learn how to make compliance easier for your workforce, read Simplifying Safety and Compliance Training Guide.
