Compliance Perspectives

Marsha Ershaghi Hames is the Managing Director for strategy and Development at compliance solution provider LRN.  She also holds a Doctorate in Education Technology.  She earned her Ph.D. studying the role leaders play in enabling organizational culture.

It’s an important field of study.  Tone at the top is something that compliance professionals discuss, but it’s about much more than compliance.  Culture permeates an organization in countless ways, and leadership very much drives that culture.

In this podcast, Marsha covers a large swatch of cultural and training ground including:

* Taking the time to understand the audience before training

* The importance of thinking about core priorities in terms of risks and themes for training

* Designing a curriculum based on your desired outcomes

* The importance of reminder messages

* The risks of too many reminders

* Thinking about a cadence to your training strategy: how frequently you train over the next 18 months or so, and the arrangement of longer and shorter messages

* How leaders can more effectively support training

* The importance of leaders being in alignment with the training and modeling the right behavior

* How leaders can help by discussing the nexus between the organization’s values and actions

* Hallmarks of how behavior change happens

* The importance of middle managers in affecting behavioral change

* Motivating rank and file employees around learning

When compliance professionals think of Brazil, they tend to focus, rightly, on the corruption challenge.  Many may miss the fact, thought that it is also a very large economy, in fact it is one of the world’s ten largest.

In addition, the country has a very sophisticated business community and a substantial investment in compliance.  So much so that it is the SCCE’s second largest country by membership.

At the 2017 SCCE Basic Compliance and Ethics Academy in Sao Paulo I wat down with Brandon Spooner, the founder of Spooners Consulting to discuss the challenges.  In this conversation he shares his insights on a wide range of topics:

* How far from hopeless the corruption is in Brazil

* The challenges of cross-border compliance

* The scope of the Brazil Clean Companies Act

* The challenges of multiple enforcement authorities within Brazil

* The need to fully understand the culture before diving in, including the importance of personal connections

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We’re all familiar with the challenges of a distributed workforce, but there are challenges, too, with a distributed compliance team.  It can be difficult working with colleagues who are hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away.  How do you work together as a team?  How do you know if your colleague is truly on board, or just saying yes to get off the phone?  And how do you ensure everyone understands their responsibilities?

Bruce Anderson, Plan Compliance Officer from Anthem, shares what he’s learned leading a compliance team that is spread out across California.  Learn from him as he discusses:

* Effective techniques for recapping what is agreed to

* How to communicate effectively

* How to encourage others to communicate with you

* Making video conferencing work, and

* Etiquette for working with colleagues in very different time zones

Civility in the workplace is something most, but not all, would agree makes for a better work environment.  But, what about the impact on compliance?

In his book Civility Rules, long-time labor and employment attorney Stephen Paskoff, who is a former trial attorney for the EEOC, argues that civility plays a critical role in ensuring ethical, compliant behavior. He observes, “The path from the merely disruptive to outright abusive behaviors is a well-traveled route to illegal actions.”

In this podcast Stephen discusses:

* The dangers of incivility

* Watching for incident reports that may not be uncovering illegality but are nonetheless troubling

* The impact of incivility on business

* The importance (and surprising ease) of making the business case for better behavior

* The role of leadership in affecting behavior

* Tone at the top

* Tying behaviors to values, and

* The importance of candor

Few things provoke more stress in the compliance and ethics community than preparing for one of the certification exams:  CHC, CCEP, CCEP-I, CHRC, CHPC.  Even those attending the Academies are fearful, often unduly.

For some it’s just the challenge and fear of taking their first test, other than for a driver’s license renewal, in years.  For others it’s the question of how to be prepare for the exam.

To help solve the latter problem we turned to, Debbie Troklus, President of the Compliance Certification Board.  Debbie leads the SCCE and HCCA Academies, and, in addition, works as Managing Director of Aegis Compliance and Ethics Center.

In this podcast Debbie explains what the certification exams cover and what they don’t.  Critically, the focus of the exams is on practical experience and application in given scenarios.  It is not about memorizing nuances of specific laws.  Instead the focus is on the concepts of compliance and the seven elements of an effective program.  As a result, the best preparation is experience working in compliance.

She also provides insight into the value of attending an SCCE or HCCA Academy and reading the book Compliance 101 as well as reviewing the content outlines for each exam.  By spending time with the outline, candidates can have a better sense of both what is covered by the test as well as areas where they may be stronger or weaker.

Finally, she discusses the benefits and pitfalls of creating or joining a study group.

Listen in.  It won’t guarantee that you will pass the exam, but it may make preparing for it a little less stressful.

Most of the discussion around getting people to complete their compliance training focuses on the rank and file employee.  Yet, getting management to complete the training, and making it relevant for them is an equally important challenge.

Without management on board, it’s hard to gain their support for the compliance program, and, at the same time, the management team may have very different training needs.

In this podcast Jason Lunday, Vice President of Product Development, Advisory Services at Syntrio provides insights in how your training can better serve the needs of leadership, and gain their support for workforce training.  Jason addresses:

* Making the most of your time with leadership

* Communicating effectively the value that comes from compliance training

* The pain that comes from not being properly trained and lacking essential compliance skills

* Discussing compliance from the perspective of its effect on strategy

* The importance of making sure that leaders understand their role in influencing employees

* Determining the best method for training

* Challenging perspectives, and

* Avoiding the mistakes that can turn off leadership.

Despite the fact that compliance training has been around for years now, there is still much debate around topics such as the use of humor and how long each piece of training should be.

In this podcast Ronnie Feldman, the founder of Learnings & Entertainments, provides his insights into these topics.  He discusses how training should be considered part of an overall communications program.  In addition, he touches on the role of live training, and what makes it work more effectively.

For many compliance professionals, working with the board is a relatively new and stress-filled endeavor.

To learn how to make the most out of this very important relationship we turned to veteran compliance professional Marjorie Doyle, who has worked extensively with several companies and their boards on compliance issues.

Marjorie is an expert practitioner and leader in the field of ethics and compliance. She works with all organizational levels including Chief Ethics & Compliance Officers, CEOs, Boards of Directors, and any others responsible for the implementation of effective ethics and compliance programs.  A member of the board of the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics and Health Care Compliance Association, Marjorie was EVP, Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at Vetco International where she was responsible for a newly formed organization of compliance officers, directors, and specialists. She reported directly to the Compliance Committee of Vetco’s Board of Directors.

Before Vetco, Marjorie was the first Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer at Dupont, where she founded and led the Ethics & Compliance Central organization, the first dedicated team of compliance officers chartered with furthering the company’s  global ethics and compliance objectives.

In this podcast, Marjorie addresses:

* The importance of demonstrating to the board that its responsibility for compliance oversight has changed and expanded

* The new DOJ evaluation questions and the importance of compliance expertise on the board

* Recording when the board discusses and reviews ethics and compliance issues

* What you need to tell the board and how to help them know what to ask

* Tying into the risk assessment

* The value of metrics and demonstrating effectiveness

* Showing the board how it can affect culture

* Pitfalls to avoid when working with the board

Anti-corruption prosecutions are far from a US-only effort these days.  More and more countries are adding legislation and enforcement.

France’s Lois Sapin II is one of the more recent government efforts.  In this podcast, you will hear from two experienced compliance professionals who explain what the law does.  This includes the creation of the AFA, A French Anti-Corruption Agency with greater resources, budge and administrative powers.

Listen in to learn more about when the law goes into effect, requirements for French companies and subsidiaries, eight required aspects under the new law, code of conduct requirements and more.

The guides providing an overview and insight into the new law are:

Cecilia Fellouse-Guenkel.  Cecilia is a passionate consultant who started working on compliance matters in the healthcare industry in 2008. She now helps companies in various industries with their compliance programs, corruption risk assessments, trainings and the coaching of new compliance officers. Originally trained as an attorney is France, she has worked in Asia (Vietnam), Africa (Nigeria and Gabon) and the UK.  Cecilia makes a point of alternating between in-house and outside missions in order to keep abreast of the day-to-day challenges facing compliance officers. Her consultancy is called Compliance For Good because she believes that through a pragmatic and operationalized approach, compliance helps companies be stronger, more profitable and sustainable… for good.

Caroline Hailey. Caroline’s work focuses on promoting ethical business practices. She currently serves as senior counsel to a major energy company, advising on anti-corruption matters, and also serves as Vice Chair of the International Bar Association’s Committee on the Drivers of Corruption. Previously, she spent eight years with a leading international law firm advising corporate issuers and financial institutions on cross-border transactions as well as boards of directors on corporate governance matters.  She has held consulting roles with the United Nations and various not-for-profit organizations and is admitted to practice law in New York and Paris.

Kristy Grant-Hart has become widely known as the author of How to be a Wildly Effective Compliance Officer. Her wisdom comes from her many years as a compliance professional, including serving as Chief Compliance Officer at United International Pictures, the joint distribution company for Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures in 65+ countries.

She recently completed a new work the Wildly STRATEGIC Compliance Officer Workbook.

In this podcast Kristy shares her insight into creating more effective compliance and ethics program objectives, strategies and plans.

Hint: it’s better if you have them than if you don’t.

She discusses what makes for the right set of objectives, especially focusing on those that the compliance department controls. From there she moves on to creating strategies that work, and the ins and outs of planning.

Plan on listening in.