MIND THE GAPS:

FIVE AREAS WHERE YOUR

MIND THE GAPS.
To address these gaps,
your compliance

COMPLIANCE REPORTING
reporting needs to
shine in these areas: INSTANT

NEEDS TO SHINE
ACTIONABLE
WHY DO PEOPLE NEED REPORTS?
When selecting a compliance system, reporting is usually an
afterthought. The excitement typically focuses on the cool new user
interface or the depth of the content library. No question, these are FLEXIBLE
important. Without a modern and easy-to-use interface, employees
cant be bothered to interact with the system; and without content,
employers are stuck developing their own compliance materials.

BUT, ITS MORE THAN JUST A PRETTY FACE. SHAREABLE

If reporting does not help you make important decisions, your company
will not find the gaps in your compliance program. Gaps include
overlooking areas of non-compliance risk; trends that indicate the
compliance program needs improvement; and most importantly,
the inability to quickly respond to a planned or surprise audit with
DEFENSIBLE
timely data.

1
STOP #1 INSTANT ACCESS STOP #2 ACTIONABLE REPORTS
We have all come to expect instant access to any piece of information we Name just about any industry and youll find a regulatory environment in flux.
want our bank account balance, available frequent flier miles, the shipping For instance, in the financial sector, there were over 43,000 regulatory alerts
status of an online purchase. Compliance reporting is no dierent. Instant issued in 2015.1
access to real-time compliance reports is essential. Out-of-date data or sloppy
record-keeping can make reporting a painful and cumbersome process. Questions to ask:
How do you keep up with evolving regulations?
Without a real-time view into your compliance status, how can you be How long does it take you to distribute a new or updated policy
certain youre adhering to the evolving regulations in your industry? And if to your workforce?
an auditor comes knocking, how long will it take you to gather the required How do you know when a policy is unread or a training left
documentation? Avoid the gap of delayed report access with a compliance half-finished?
automation solution that tracks and reports, in real-time, every activity Whats your process for filling the gaps to ensure incomplete activities
related to your workforce compliance initiatives. are completed?

Regulators and auditors dont like to uncover gaps. With an automated compliance
management solution, you can track the most important activities within
your compliance program that are relevant to every role in your organization.
And with actionable data, you can identify and remediate gaps quickly
and eciently. Having meaningful data at your fingertips helps you not only
understand where you are, but also helps you make decisions about what you
need to do next. For example, if your central branch is showing a lapse in
harassment training completions, you can put a program or internal campaign
in place for that branch to make the training a priority.

For information: visit www.compli.com or call 866.294.5545

2
STOP #3 FLEXIBLE
Most organizations today operate in a siloed environment. Each department
has its own systems, its own processes and its own way of doing things.
Most have come to accept this state, but in reality, how much is the siloed
structure of your organization hitting your bottom line? With a flexible
compliance system, you can report across all of your silos. You can slice and
dice the data to show status by department, by location, by supervisory level
and more. With this degree of flexibility, you can break down those silos and
show data in a consistent way. And if there is another system of record you
need to maintain, an eective reporting tool will always allow for data to be
exported and loaded into other systems.
To mind this gap, make sure that you have multiple formats and ways to share
your reports. Busy executives will need a visually engaging dashboard to
quickly grab the essence of the what you are trying to communicate to them.
Compliance ocers will need a means to grab key details about their
compliance programs on-the-go via a tablet or smartphone. And the real
data junkies (a.k.a. auditors) need a spreadsheet delivered to them on a
periodic basis. Minding this gap ensures your audience hears your story
loud and clear.

STOP #4 - SHAREABLE
At its most basic level, reporting is simply sharing a story. So it would follow
that sharing begins with the consideration of the audience who will receive
a report; which drives the format. For example, the same report shared with
an executive to convey an overview of the compliance program may not contain
the level of detail required by an auditor.

Additionally, if your story is locked behind a platform, it will require your

audience to log into the system to view the content. If the content is not
easily accessed, your audience will either not bother to go through the steps
required to see the report, or they will - most likely - come to you directly for
the information in another format. Not good!

Sharing your story in a quick meaningful way is business critical and can
often save your organization time, money and headaches. For example,
SECs Stephen Cohen said in a recent interview that he liked to, ask compliance
ocers to come in to hear about their compliance program at the outset of
an investigation. The reasoning? Cohen said that if the SEC waits, the company
has time to get their story straight with corporate counsel.2

For information: visit www.compli.com or call 866.294.5545

3
STOP #5 - DEFENSIBLE
At some point, your compliance program may be called into question.
Whether it is an internal audit, a regulatory investigation, or the ever-present
threat of litigation, you will need to defend your company at some point. Easy
access to real-time reporting about your program will help you mind this gap.
To quickly respond to an inquiry, your tool kit should include:
Preformatted compliance reports containing data such as user compliance
and activity completion rates
Onscreen reports with drillable data points to provide the
information behind measurements
Customizable CSV output to show full and complete audit trails throughout
the application, including meta data for each activity
In addition to the summary level reporting mentioned above, an organization
should be able to pull up a receipt to show not only the date and time stamp
that an employee provided their digital signature on a particular policy,
procedure or training, but also an exact copy of the item they signed. Policies,
procedures and trainings are constantly in flux. Therefore, organizations need
to learn and adapt to information gathered about the program through reports,
and ensure employees can attest to more than one version of a document.
This is something common solutions, such as SharePoint or network file folders,
cannot do.
ARRIVING AT YOUR DESTINATION
Your goal is to ensure your organization stays in compliance with all laws,
regulations and policies required by your business. To help make the important
business decisions based on data, you need compliance reports that are:
1. Instant
2. Actionable
3. Flexible
4. Shareable
5. Defensible
Remember if reporting is just an afterthought you may never arrive at your
destination.
For more information:
visit www.compli.com or call 1.866.294.5545
1 https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/xe/Documents/finance/me_fa_financial-crime-mena-2016.PDF
2 https://www.complianceweek.com/news/newsarticle/defining-compliance-program-eectiveness