Totara Guide: Compliance Insights

Compliance with government and business regulation has always been important, but the pressure to prove that compliance has never been higher.The business risk of noncompliance is such that the reputational damage alone can lead to significant loss of earnings or even closure. With less than 40% of organisations feeling ‘thoroughly prepared’ for a compliance audit (Brandon Hall, 2017), it is clear that there is much work to be done to get businesses up to the required standard. Organisations in high-consequence industries such as healthcare, manufacturing and defence, fare a little better, with 56% reporting being thoroughly prepared for any upcoming audits, but this still leaves almost half of organisations operating in high-risk areas not feeling as though their compliance training or records are adequate.

The introduction of new major laws such as GDPR (which gives greater control to users of services in the EU over their personal data) are often stacked on top of existing regulations such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), adding an additional burden on compliance management, including the provision of staff training. A spate of large-scale compliance violations (such as fraud and corruption in the finance sector and patient confidentiality violations in healthcare organisations) have left businesses more anxious than ever before about the potential repercussions of non-compliance. With fines, removal of licences, imprisonment and the entire future of the organisation being plunged into jeopardy, it is crucial that everyone knows the rules they must abide by, and that the organisation can prove that the relevant training has taken place and has been successfully understood and then acted upon.