Post By: Adam Turteltaub

Jim Passey, Vice President, Chief Audit & Compliance Officer at Honor Health sat down with us to record three podcasts focused on compliance career development:

Setting Career Goals

Moving Your Career Forward

Making it to the Top

You’ve set your career goals. You’ve mapped out the interim steps. Now, how do you keep moving along the path you have made for yourself?

The first step that Jim Passey outlines in this podcast is to do your homework. Compliance, he explains, is about giving good advice. As a result, nothing can destroy your credibility (and prospects) faster than giving bad advice.

To avoid that trap he advises investing the time to understand the government’s expectations. That begins, of course, with the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, but it doesn’t stop there. Stay on top of what is going on in enforcement. Focus on what the enforcement community is focusing on. Also, have a strong grasp of your organization’s business so you know to implement your program effectively within its culture. That includes understanding the structure and political flow of decision making, including who has formal and informal authority.

That’s only the beginning. As we all know, compliance isn’t just about knowing what the law and regulations requires. In many ways that is the easy part. The more difficult challenge is getting people to comply. Success is guiding behavior comes from persuasion, collaboration, motivation and inspiration.

So, to ensure success for your compliance program and your career, it is essential to develop strong communication skills, and even know a bit about salesmanship.

Negotiation skills are also a necessity. There are lots of grey areas in compliance where the laws and regulations aren’t perfectly clear, or a new business idea doesn’t fall neatly within existing frameworks. Having the ability to navigate the grey and find a potential solution is an invaluable skill.

What else does he recommend? Be dependable. Take initiative. Be the voice of solutions not problems. Work well with others. Build your network. Get involved in the compliance community, and take advantage of what SCCE and HCCA have to offer. You can even start with this podcast.  Listen in.