legal Eagle Straight-forward legal tips for Military and Veteran Business Owners By Kelly Bagla, Esq.
CORPORATE COMPLIANCE Corporate compliance should be an essential part of your business operations, regardless of industry. How does your business manage compliance and mitigate risk? Taking preventative measures can feel like a hassle upfront, but it can save your organization an absorbent amount of costs in the long run.
After all, employees can’t be held responsible for rules and regulations they don’t know exists. HOW TO CREATE A SUCCESSFUL CORPORATE COMPLIANCE PROGRAM Here are a few steps to establish your corporate compliance program:
WHAT IS COMPLIANCE IN BUSINESS?
1) Compliance Starts With Leadership
In the corporate world, corporate compliance is the process of making sure your company and employees follow all laws, regulations, standards, and ethical practices that apply to your organization and industry. Corporate governance covers both internal policies and procedures, as well as federal and state laws. Enforcing compliance helps your company prevent and detect violations of rules, which protects your organization from fines and lawsuits. The compliance process should be ongoing.
Leaders should encourage ethical behavior and openly talk about the importance of compliance.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF A CORPORATE COMPLIANCE PROGRAM? The purpose is to protect your business. It’s as simple as that. But the return on investment could be significant, helping you avoid waste. Fraud, abuse, discrimination, and other practices that disrupt operations and put your company at risk. An effective program improves communication between leadership and staff. It should include a process for creating, updating, distributing, and tracking compliance policies.
48
WWW.HomelandMagazine.com / AUGUST 2022
2) Conduct Risk Assessments Corporate compliance is about managing risk. To build an effective program, you need to know what compliance areas pose the highest risks to your organization. Federal and state regulations, as well as industry standards, are constantly evolving. To avoid risk of noncompliance, its’ important to conduct regular assessments, such as assessing recent litigation, complaints, employee claims, and industry enforcement trends. 3) Establish And Maintain Your Code Of Conduct, Policies, And Standards Your corporate compliance program needs a well defined code of conduct because it can help define your program’s purpose and set expectations for behavior. The code of conduct should explain
