Compliance Professionals: responsability and personal risks vs wages and benefits

The importance of Compliance matters and the demand for qualified Compliance Professionals has been growing all over the world since the Enron case in the United States, such growth has even acelerated after the 2008 banking crisis.

Compliance jobs are highly demanding at all levels, since the kind of tasks, personal risks and responsabilities to a continuous effort of being allways up to date with the new regulations and tendencies.

Compliance professionals should have at the same time an appropriate and solid academical background as well as an adequate personal profile. At the early years of this century in countries without a solid tradition and culture of Compliance it was "normal" to transfer to the Compliance departaments employees near the retirement age or without career perspectives, a sort of pre-retirement activity. Such attitude had only in mind the formal accomplishment of the legal and regulatory demands with little intention of having an effective Compliance team in the field.

On other hand the attitude of having Compliance units only to assure the accomplishment of the legal and regulatory demands on mere formal basis, what is currently known as "fake" or "cosmetic" Compliance still survives.

Companies with this kind of approach to Compliance don't have an attractive wage and benefit package for its Compliance professionals who are normally payd as unqualified clerks.

There are still too many cases of well qualified and highly professional Compliance teams that deal with this kind of approach from their companies. This attitude has several negative effects mainly on the moral and motivation of such teams whose professionalism and engagement is placed in stake by a ridiculous wage and benefit policy.

The question still to be answered is how should these qualified professionals be paid? As qualified personel with high levels of responsability or as "mere" clerks? Although the answer seems quite simple, the fact is that quite often too many Compliance Specialists are paid like simple and unqualified clerks.

Such wage policy, diminishing the importance of the Compliance Specialist role and responsability can only keep on underminig both the work environment and the quality of the performance of those professionals.

An organization that applies such kind of wage policy doesn't have any kind of intention of dignify or even to accomplish its Compliance Program in a proper way.

Every qualified Specialist with proper and solid academical training or proved experience must be paid according to the demands and responsabilities of the function and should also have an attractive wage and benefits package. 

Even a well designed and tailor made Compliance Program can be jeopardized if the Compliance staff is placed at the same wage level of unqualified and simple clerks. As stated before the human factor is crucial for the sucess of every Compliance Program and the wage and fringe benefits part is very important.

The text above is a personal opinion and cannot be associated with the authors current employer.