5 Common Compliance Issues (and How to Overcome Them)

Compliance problems can come at you from all the sides. For instance, a customer may request evidence of certification you don’t have, your insurance company might charge higher premiums if you can’t prove compliance to relevant industry standards, or you might hear of a government job that you’re perfectly suited to tender, but you don’t have the certification necessary to apply.

On a day-to-day level, you might struggle with product and service quality, information security or long-term sustainability.

All of these issues can decrease your efficiency and create roadblocks to your company’s future. Let’s look at five common compliance issues and how to overcome them. When you resolve these all-too-familiar business headaches, you clear the path forward, making it much easier to achieve your goals.

1. Poor Implementation

In their haste to achieve compliance and get back to business, many companies suffer from poor implementation of industry standards. A bare-minimum approach generally leaves organisations in an immature state, and it’s difficult to maintain a solid level of compliance.

One way to overcome this problem is to evaluate the compliance essentials for your business. All too often, people make compliance too complex and arduous by creating unnecessary paperwork and procedures, or relying on inexperienced internal resources to do the job. You need a simplified, tailored approach to compliance; keep the essentials and discard superfluous details.

Another key to overcoming poor implementation is getting everyone on board. Involving key stakeholders in the compliance process will ensure better long-term results.

2. Technology

If your company doesn’t have the technology to support your compliance, you’ll run into troubles, both now and in the future when you need to renew your certifications.

The right tech can help you to quickly and easily analyse whether or not you’re reaching key indicators and staying on track. From monitoring regulatory changes to staying on top of staff compliance, technology can help you stay ahead of your obligations. You can even use tech to effortlessly issue compliance reports to boards, regulators and other stakeholders.

3. Procrastination

You’re in business to sell products and services, and because compliance doesn’t seem to directly affect your sales, it’s all too easy to put it on the back burner. However, procrastination is a huge compliance issue that can lead to real problems for businesses in many industries.

Certification can take many months, so leave yourself plenty of time to meet your deadline and engage a compliance consultant like us to ensure everything stays on track. Hiring outside help can allow your employees to focus on what they do best while still achieving your compliance goals in a timely manner.

4. Lack of a Multidisciplinary Team

Compliance cuts across every department in your organisation. In many ways, each of your departments acts independently from the rest. Your finance people have their processes and procedures. The marketing department manages their tasks in their own way. But when it comes to compliance, every area has responsibilities for specific regulations.

Some business owners ask each separate department to handle compliance in their own way and report back. But with such a lack of homogeneity, reports are confusing, and details fall through the cracks.

It’s important to standardise compliance processes and reporting protocols, and a cross-functional, multidisciplinary workforce can make this happen.

Our team can help you to implement compliance processes at every level and throughout every department, even if your company is spread out over several geographical locations.

5. Competing Priorities

Too many businesses fail to complete their targeted certifications, not because they lack in substance, but because they just don’t manage to complete certain tasks. Most business owners don’t have the luxury of extra time for focusing on compliance issues. Their leadership is essential to the survival and success of their companies.

That’s why we do what we do.

With our help, you don’t have to let compliance compete with your core priorities. We can guide you through the entire compliance process, delivering a strengthened, more effective company that produces better quality goods and services.

To learn more about how we can help you overcome these and other compliance issues, reach out to us for a custom solution for your specific needs. Having worked with a variety of Australian companies in a number of sectors, we’re prepared to help.

Schedule a consultation with us at Compliance Council.