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3 Ways to Keep Your Compliance Team Happy

author Michael Berman
3 min read
May 10, 2022

Compliance is a difficult job in any financial institution. Compliance teams are challenged to stay ahead of growing cybersecurity threats, keeping personally identifiable information (PII) private, staying current with changes in state and federal compliance rules, controlling costs, and keeping up with the actual (not just the promised) capabilities of compliance technology.

It’s no surprise then that the best compliance personnel are in high demand, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, making it more important than ever to keep your compliance team happy.

Here are three ways to do so:

1. Be as efficient as possible.

Higher wages, better benefits, and regular bonuses are all great and certainly an incentive for employees to stay in their current jobs – but it’s not enough. Employees want modern technology and the right tools to do their jobs effectively, efficiently and without headache.

This is especially the case for compliance teams. Compliance team members, like others throughout your institution, are constantly being expected to do more with less. Even if staff size remains the same, the growth of cyberattacks and the nuances of compliance rules keeps growing.

Automation helps lower the burden on staff, while keeping them engaged in meaningful work. A compliance management system can automatically handle the mundane chores of updating dates, compliance training status, and other details, enabling staff to concentrate on more challenging and interesting tasks.

Read also: How to Improve Employee Efficiency by up to 30% 

2. Offer remote work opportunities.

Remote work was necessary during the height of the pandemic. Employers and employees alike found that they could be just as productive, if not more so, working in a remote environment – there is no time lost to commuting, employees can focus on work with fewer disruptions, they can take care of home and family commitments in the middle of the day without needing to take the full day off, and so on.

Remote work options also enable bankers and other employers to reduce their corporate brick-and-mortar footprint. A smaller footprint also means smaller utility costs.

While you may want your compliance team at your headquarters or in physical branch offices some of the time, there are those you may need in the office rarely, if at all. This not only allows you to hire employees from anywhere in the country and broaden your talent pool, but it also means you may keep employees who are thinking of relocating and would otherwise change jobs in doing so. In fact, a recent study by Flexjobs found that not allowing remote work is a top 5 reason (43%) for employees to quit their jobs.

Read also: 5 Interview Questions You Should Ask Compliance Manager Candidates

3. Provide solid – and ongoing – training and support.

With heightened competition for compliance staff, the perfect candidate for your team – one with compliance experience and an eye for detail – may not be available. Yet there are likely smart candidates with little or no compliance experience that could make valuable additions to your staff with the proper training.

But training shouldn’t stop there. To retain employees, you must support them with technology that automates continued training, offering compliance team members the ability to not only keep up with current rules and regulations, but to also advance their knowledge to help with upward mobility in the institution.

According to a recent SurveyMonkey study, roughly 86% of employees say that job training is important to them, with nearly three out of every four (74%) willing to learn things outside of work hours to improve their job performance. Meanwhile, only about half (52%) of employees think their employer provides the right amount of training.

How to Get a New Risk or Compliance Officer Up to Speed (ncontracts.com)

Happy Employees May Actually Mean Fewer Costs

According to a study by U.C. Berkeley, it costs an average of $4,000 above salary and wages to hire a new employee. That cost rises to $7,000 when it comes to replacing management-level employees and professionals. For compliance professionals, that cost is likely even more.

By keeping your compliance team happy, you retain them and avoid the time and expenses required for hiring recruiters, vetting resumes, or posting job openings, etc.

Additionally, you keep their knowledge. Your current staff knows your policies, procedures, and documentation requirements, the status of compliance tasks they are implementing, and where your institution is in its digital transformation process.

The current staff also has familiarity with your current technology systems, including the compliance management system that can keep all documentation in order so any authorized person on the compliance team can locate it.

This knowledge is critical and will be yet another expense (in the form of training) for your institution if you’re unable to keep your current team happy.

Want to learn how you can improve your company culture with an Intranet?
Check out our recent article, “How to Activate Your Company Culture with an Intranet (in 7 Steps) (ncontracts.com)”

 

Related: How to Activate Your Company Culture with an Intranet (in 7 Steps)

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