By Adam Turteltaub

We all want the compliance team to be approachable. It would be ideal if, when people thought of compliance, they had positive, maybe even warm and fuzzy, associations in their mind.

But, how do we get there? For BroadPath, a friendly blue koala was the answer.

In this podcast, Jaime Watkins, the compliance officer there, explains that she drew inspiration from the Basic Compliance & Ethics Academy and an exercise that called for creating a compliance mascot. Back at the office she created a contest among employees to create a mascot as a part of the company’s celebration of their compliance and ethics week. A winner was selected, and, with the help of the marketing team, the blue koala was born.

Since then, the furry critter has been a regular part of their training, newsletter and is used everywhere that they can, even sometimes straying to the activities of other groups in the company.

The impact of the koala has been enormous. People enjoy seeing variations of how it is dressed up for holidays and it even plays a role in regular compliance trivia contests.

Listen in to learn more about how a mascot could help your compliance efforts.