By Adam Turteltaub

Stamford Health has just a bit less than 4000 employees spread out in over 40 local offices. For some that would be a nightmare when figuring out how to put together a celebration of Corporate Compliance & Ethics Week, but it’s not for Cheryl Gilbert, the director of compliance and privacy.

To make the annual event work she uses a wide range of communications vehicles to get the word out. The organization has a new employee orientation every other week, and compliance is a part of it. The organizational newsletter, which publishes twice each week, is also put to use. So, too, is the compliance intranet site.

What aren’t used? Posters. The team found that the effort involved in creating them, putting them up and taking them down just wasn’t worth it.

To make the week fun they have developed a wide range of activities including a:

Haiku contest. Employees are challenged to write a haiku based on the organizations core values.

Where’s Waldo type game in which employees have to spot all the breaches on a messy desktop.

Question of the day.

Word search, which is probably the most popular of all.

There is also the opportunity to nominate compliance heroes, with rewards to both the hero and the person who nominates them.

While all of these are great for building the relationship between compliance and the rest of the organization, she advises that you shouldn’t let your Corporate Compliance & Ethics Week be the only time a year in which the barriers come down. She recommends investing wherever possible in face-to-face interactions. You would be amazed, she tells us, at what a coffee cake can do to help.

Listen in to learn more about how to make your Corporate Compliance & Week celebration a success.