30 Days to a Better Compliance Program-Day 5

Welcome to Day 5 of 30 Days to a Better Compliance Program. Today, I focus on training, ongoing communications and the use of social media in a best practices compliance program. 

Training

The communication of your anti-corruption compliance program is something that must be done on a regular basis to ensure its effectiveness. The FCPA Guidance explains, “Compliance policies cannot work unless effectively communicated throughout a company. Accordingly, DOJ and SEC will evaluate whether a company has taken steps to ensure that relevant policies and procedures have been com­municated throughout the organization, including through periodic training and certification for all directors, officers, relevant employees, and, where appropriate, agents and business partners.”

 One of the key goals of any FCPA compliance program is to train company employees in awareness and understanding of the FCPA; your specific company compliance program; and to create and foster a culture of compliance. Beginning in the fall of 2015 through the announcement of the FCPA enforcement Pilot Program, the Justice Department began to talk about whether you have determined the effectiveness of your training. 

Communication and Use of Social Media

Next you need to consider the messaging of compliance inside of your corporation and how it is distributed. This means that you will need to work to hone your message but also continue to plug away to send that message out. I think the Morgan Stanley Declination will always be instructional as one of the stated reasons the Department of Justice (DOJ) did not prosecute the company as they sent out 35 compliance reminders to its workforce, over 7 years. Social media can be used in the same cost effective way, to not only get the message of compliance out but also to receive information and communications back from your customer base, the company employees. 

In a compliance program, your consumers/customers are your employees. Social media presents some excellent mechanisms to communicate the message of compliance going forward. Many of the applications that we use in our personal communication are free or available at very low cost. So why not take advantage of them and use those same communication tools in your internal compliance marketing efforts going forward. 

Three Key Takeaways

1. You need to demonstrate the effectiveness of your compliance training.
2. Ongoing communications from compliance is an often overlooked tool in compliance.
3. Utilize innovative social media techniques to communicate and train.

 For more information, check out my book Doing Compliance: Design, Create and Implement an Effective Anti-Corruption Compliance Program, which is available by clicking here.