Industry Expertise:
Policy Management Compliance
Policy management has become a hot topic lately. Thanks to several recent trends and incidents in compliance—dumb employee use of social media here, a class-action lawsuit over pay discrimination there, and regulatory enforcement actions all over the place—companies are dusting off their policy manuals with an eye toward streamlining and reforming their approach to corporate policy making. These developments are a stark reminder to all companies that the mere existence of a policy means nothing if it isn't applied and enforced at the corporate level.
At a recent editorial rountable in Boston hosted by Compliance Week and software firm EthicsPoint, compliance, legal, and audit executives shared how they manage the policy-making process. Participants talked through the need for a “policy on policies,” the distinction between policies and procedures, the difficulties of setting uniform policies worldwide, the eternal hassle of exception requests, and the training needed to ensure that policies are followed.
The most vexing challenge, many agreed, is developing a single corporate policy that can be applied across global operations. Boston Scientific, for example, is expanding its business operations at a rapid pace in various countries around the world. “Marrying the corporate objectives of a policy with the local laws and cultural considerations in countries where we are doing business is an area of focus for us right now,” said Jessica Pill, director of global compliance investigations for the $7.8 billion medical device maker.