Compliance Perspectives

By Adam Turteltaub

Your organization has just reached a settlement with the government, and you have a corporate monitor.  Making that relationship work is essential not just for meeting the terms of a Deferred Prosecution Agreement.  It’s also essential for coming out of the monitorship with a much stronger compliance and ethics program.

Eric Feldman of Affiliated Monitors, Inc. and Tom Topolski worked closely together when Tom’s previous employer had engaged Eric as a monitor.  In this podcast they discuss what made their relationship work, and the lessons every compliance professional can take away when in the middle of, or about to face, a monitorship.

They explain:

* Getting a monitor is not always negative; it’s also a good opportunity to adopt best practices

* Red flags that a monitor would see as a symptom of a larger problem than expected

* The importance of trust to the relationship

* The monitor has to go in with a mindset that they are there to be collaborative, and that collaboration and independence are not mutually exclusive

* The goal is to work together to build the best organization possible using compliance best practices

By Adam Turteltaub

By any measure, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala is a large company.  It operates in 30 different jurisdictions, has tens of thousands of employees and has over half a trillion dollars in assets.

This posed a substantial challenge for the compliance team.  Printing and distributing codes of conducts in multiple languages was not easy, and likely did not serve their employee base well.  People don’t typically have their copy of the code of conduct with them out in the field when issues come up.  Plus, with most of the company’s employees aged 35 or less, a paper code didn’t really match the way they consumed information.

The solution for Mubadala was to create an app for its code of conduct (just search “Mubadala” in your app store to download it).

As Shahzad Khad, Mubadala’s Head of Compliance and Ethics explains, the company saw an app as a better way to connect and engage with stakeholders — employees, partners, suppliers and agents in field.

In this podcast, he explains how the Mubadala compliance and ethics department:

* Put together a development team focused on making the app work from a technical, content, business and usability perspective

* Decided what to include in the app and what not to

* Made the app interactive to increase learning and involvement

Listen in also to learn about how they did it, the app’s impact on helpline calls, and how employees actually use it.

By Adam Turteltaub

By any measure, Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala is a large company.  It operates in 30 different jurisdictions, has tens of thousands of employees and has over half a trillion dollars in assets.

This posed a substantial challenge for the compliance team.  Printing and distributing codes of conducts in multiple languages was not easy, and likely did not serve their employee base well.  People don’t typically have their copy of the code of conduct with them out in the field when issues come up.  Plus, with most of the company’s employees aged 35 or less, a paper code didn’t really match the way they consumed information.

The solution for Mubadala was to create an app for its code of conduct (just search “Mubadala” in your app store to download it).

As Shahzad Khad, Mubadala’s Head of Compliance and Ethics explains, the company saw an app as a better way to connect and engage with stakeholders — employees, partners, suppliers and agents in field.

In this podcast, he explains how the Mubadala compliance and ethics department:

* Put together a development team focused on making the app work from a technical, content, business and usability perspective

* Decided what to include in the app and what not to

* Made the app interactive to increase learning and involvement

Listen in also to learn about how they did it, the app’s impact on helpline calls, and how employees actually use it.

By Adam Turteltaub

Public-private partnerships are formed jointly by government entities and the private sector.  Like joint ventures they have two organizational owners.  Also like joint ventures they share a risk:  each side thinks the other is in charge of compliance, while neither side actually is.

Kent Swagler is there to makes sure that compliance is very much taken care of for Bi-State Development in St. Louis.  He serves as the organization’s Director, Compliance and Ethics.

In this podcast he shares how to make compliance work in a public-private partnership.  The key, he explains, is to work together collaboratively to turn compliance into an asset for protecting mutual interest.  He shares numerous pieces of advice including:

* The importance of demonstrating that this is not a duplication of effort

* The need to gain the support of the employees by demonstrating you are listening

* Providing metrics of success, even if it just progress

* The value of a consolidated requirements spreadsheet

Kent concludes by sharing how he was also able to demonstrate how much the compliance program saved the partnership.

It’s good listening for anyone in a public-private partnership, or even a joint venture.

By Adam Turteltaub

Public-private partnerships are formed jointly by government entities and the private sector.  Like joint ventures they have two organizational owners.  Also like joint ventures they share a risk:  each side thinks the other is in charge of compliance, while neither side actually is.

Kent Swagler is there to makes sure that compliance is very much taken care of for Bi-State Development in St. Louis.  He serves as the organization’s Director, Compliance and Ethics.

In this podcast he shares how to make compliance work in a public-private partnership.  The key, he explains, is to work together collaboratively to turn compliance into an asset for protecting mutual interest.  He shares numerous pieces of advice including:

* The importance of demonstrating that this is not a duplication of effort

* The need to gain the support of the employees by demonstrating you are listening

* Providing metrics of success, even if it just progress

* The value of a consolidated requirements spreadsheet

Kent concludes by sharing how he was also able to demonstrate how much the compliance program saved the partnership.

It’s good listening for anyone in a public-private partnership, or even a joint venture.

By Adam Turteltaub

Over the last seventeen-plus years that I have worked in compliance, the dialogue about training has morphed in many ways.  There was the debate over whether you could make compliance training mandatory.  There was discussion about whether you could do something shorter than the typical 40 minutes to an hour course.

Both issues have long-since been settled, but one issue still gets hotly discussed:  whether comedy can work in compliance training.

Jim Shields of Twist & Shout Media, strongly disagrees.  He is one of the forces behind the compliance training series Tuesdays with Bernie (not weekend with Bernie, as I mistakenly said in the podcast).

In our discussion, he argues that there is a place for humor in compliance.  He strongly believes that it can be very useful for gaining people’s attention and open a channel for communication, turning training from an interruption of the day to an interesting addition to it.

Listen in and then decide whether humor can enhance your compliance communications.

By Adam Turteltaub

Over the last seventeen-plus years that I have worked in compliance, the dialogue about training has morphed in many ways.  There was the debate over whether you could make compliance training mandatory.  There was discussion about whether you could do something shorter than the typical 40 minutes to an hour course.

Both issues have long-since been settled, but one issue still gets hotly discussed:  whether comedy can work in compliance training.

Jim Shields of Twist & Shout Media, strongly disagrees.  He is one of the forces behind the compliance training series Tuesdays with Bernie (not weekend with Bernie, as I mistakenly said in the podcast).

In our discussion, he argues that there is a place for humor in compliance.  He strongly believes that it can be very useful for gaining people’s attention and open a channel for communication, turning training from an interruption of the day to an interesting addition to it.

Listen in and then decide whether humor can enhance your compliance communications.

By Adam Turteltaub

The term “data mining” is coming up a lot in the news and conversations today.  Perhaps surprisingly to some, it’s very relevant for compliance.

Tom Zeno is no stranger to the topic.  He spent 25 years in the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC and is currently with the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs.

In this podcast, he explains that data mining is an intelligent method to collect data patterns.  The government is already using data mining to identify terrorist financing, money laundering, and healthcare fraud.  It’s even being used to analyze opioid prescriptions.

Most interesting of all, he explains, the Department of Justice in 2017 announced that it had opened a data mining unit in the fraud section.

Listen in to this podcast as he discusses what the government is doing, how compliance professionals can start using the same techniques to identify potential problems, and the IT resources they will likely need.

 

By Adam Turteltaub

The term “data mining” is coming up a lot in the news and conversations today.  Perhaps surprisingly to some, it’s very relevant for compliance.

Tom Zeno is no stranger to the topic.  He spent 25 years in the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC and is currently with the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs.

In this podcast, he explains that data mining is an intelligent method to collect data patterns.  The government is already using data mining to identify terrorist financing, money laundering, and healthcare fraud.  It’s even being used to analyze opioid prescriptions.

Most interesting of all, he explains, the Department of Justice in 2017 announced that it had opened a data mining unit in the fraud section.

Listen in to this podcast as he discusses what the government is doing, how compliance professionals can start using the same techniques to identify potential problems, and the IT resources they will likely need.

 

By Adam Turteltaub

Editor’s Note:  Chris Bohjalian’s latest novel The Flight Attendant just made the NY Times Bestseller List.  We are sharing his October 2017 podcast with us again in case you missed it.  We hope you enjoy his perspective on ethics in fiction and in real life.

One of the stranger things in compliance and ethics is that if you sit people down for compliance and ethics training, they tend to issue at a minimum a silent groan.  Yet, those same people will happily sit down with a novel where the protagonist is wrestling between right and wrong.

There is much that can be learned from the ability of novels, as well as TV and movies, to help us learn about right and wrong.  This media can also teach us a great deal about how we react when we see others behaving badly.

To explore this issue I sat down for a podcast with Chris Bohjalian, whose book Midwives was selected for Oprah’s Book Club.  His novel The Sleepwalker was just released in paperback, and in March 2018 (not 2019 like I said in the interview) his newest book, The Flight Attendant, arrives.

Listen in to the podcast as we discuss:

* The human fascination with moral ambiguity and people who do the wrong thing

* Our fascination with how good people can do the wrong thing and the recognition that we easily could make moral mistakes

* The influence of television, movies and books on whom we see as good and evil

* Our discomfort with people who are “too good”

* What Tony Soprano and Don Draper have done to our perception of what people will tolerate

* The notion that “it’s only business, nothing personal” and the problems that may create

* The cover up being worse than the crime and the value of stopping problems when they are small

* Why people welcome ethical dilemmas, and right and wrong in novels, films and TV, but not when it is a part of training