Frontline compliance: big wins with small budgets

At Risk Advisory’s most recent Women in Compliance event, we discussed how companies can implement effective ethics and compliance programmes with a limited budget.

We were lucky enough to hear from Keely Hibbitt, the former group head of business integrity at Balfour Beatty plc, who shared her experiences of reforming the compliance programme at this infrastructure company while also balancing tight budgetary constraints.

"... shifting away from a more traditional view of compliance ... and moving towards one that fosters inclusivity, communication and ownership"

During her presentation, Keely talked about how she has spent the last three years revamping the ethics and compliance programme at Balfour Beatty which was originally launched in 2009. The overarching aim of the new programme was to change the culture of compliance at the company. This meant shifting away from a more traditional view of compliance, which typically prioritises policy documents, procedures and the legal and regulatory framework, and moving towards one that fosters inclusivity, communication and ownership.

A review of the new programme was undertaken in 2018 and revealed quantifiable improvements. The number of whistleblowing cases had increased significantly to just under the global benchmark, highlighting that people now know about the system and feel empowered to use it. An assessment also showed that employees were more knowledgeable of, and engaged with, compliance, and nearly all knew what was expected of them by the company.

Keely explained that compliance improvements can be achieved through practical and low-cost steps, including:

• introducing different but cost-effective ways of communicating with employees such as via text message and using humour to ensure information is read and passed on;
• using free compliance resources that many people are not aware of, such as training courses offered by the police and government funding for anti-bribery projects;
• replacing time-consuming e-learning programmes, which are often resented by employees, with an assessment to determine knowledge before appropriate training is provided.  Where possible, using face-to-face training which can be used to reach a large number of employees. Importantly, all training should focus on what the company expects from its employees, rather than going into unnecessary depth about the law;
• embedding voluntary business integrity advisors - people who are passionate about compliance and want to help - into different functions and teams within the company. These advisors can then act as ‘champions’ for the compliance agenda, ensuring business integrity at all levels of the organisation; and
• transforming a lengthy code of conduct hard-copy document into a website. This was much easier for employees to access, prioritised the key messages that the compliance team wanted to convey, and made the information a lot easier to absorb.

To find out more about implementing a compliance programme on a budget, contact Keely Hibbitt at [email protected].

If you would like to join Women in Compliance networking group to discuss this or other compliance issues, contact [email protected].