By Adam Turteltaub

NAVEX earlier this year issued its very substantial 2023 State of Risk & Compliance Report. To learn about the key findings we sat down with longtime ethics and compliance leader Carrie Penman, who serves as the company’s Chief Risk and Compliance Officer.

Overall, the data reveals strong management support for compliance and ethics programs, although there are cracks showing. When asked whether this commitment persists in the face of competing interests, the numbers show a troubling drop. Worse, there was an increase in the number of survey respondents indicating that middle managers encouraged employees to act unethically or impeded compliance personnel from their job. It was still a minority, but a larger one than before.

Turning to specific risk areas, data breaches and privacy/security threats were the top fears for compliance professionals. Not surprisingly, cyber came up as a top training topic. It was followed by codes of conduct and privacy.

Looking globally – the survey also has data broken out for Germany, France and the UK – there was a far from uniform picture, with country-by-country variations showing varying priorities and levels of satisfaction. For example, risk and compliance professionals in Germany reported their ability to measure training and behavior higher than their peers in France and the US.

All in all, the report makes for a fascinating, and sometimes troubling, picture of the practice of compliance.

Listen in to learn more about what the data said and what it may indicate for your compliance program.