When your business or organization must adhere to laws and regulations, there is an enormous risk in not complying. Regulatory compliance means observing rules and following guidelines. Some of these are highly specific to an industry.
Regulatory compliance documentation is how your organization proves it is in compliance. It helps avoid the risks of fines, reputation damage, or shutdown. It is also the method through which your organization communicates the need for and expectations surrounding compliance, giving staff a thorough understanding.
The Challenges of Regulatory Compliance Documentation
Regulatory compliance and the documentation of this compliance is a matter of following the rules. Still, it can certainly feel more challenging than that. Many laws, regulations, and standards enforce compliance. Businesses cannot overlook them. At the same time, the regulatory environment is changing quickly. What you were doing to be compliant one day may not be enough the next.
Failing to comply means fines from regulators, as well as potential lawsuits from impacted clients. We have all seen big name companies in the news for compliance failures and data breaches. As a result, these companies often lose favor in the eyes of their customers. Then, competitors have the leverage to win the customer base over.
Clearly, compliance is the foundation of any ethical, accountable business. However, documentation of that compliance can be just as tricky as meeting all of the regulations. Often, compliance documentation is inadequate and ineffective, not proving compliance well enough.
Regulatory compliance documentation also includes providing documents that map out why compliance is important and how to best accomplish it. When this documentation is lacking or nonexistent, staff have little to no insight as to their role in compliance. So, there are two critical aspects of compliance: understanding what staff needs to do and informing them and documenting those efforts for audit purposes.
Developing Regulatory Compliance Documentation
Developing a regulatory compliance documentation program is an extensive undertaking that requires a lot of work. It is also something that cannot be done once and left to use for years. As we noted, regulatory compliance is often shifting, which means any regulatory compliance documentation or programming must be reviewed and updated regularly.
The first step in developing regulatory compliance documentation is understanding laws and regulations applicable to your business or organization. Some regulations apply to all businesses. Others are industry specific. An overview of these laws and regulations helps your organization understand where your company faces risks.
For example, an organization needing to protect large volumes of personal information faces different risk than an organization handling a small volume. The more people and devices the data touches, the higher the potential for problems with compliance. The company managing a lot of data will likely take a different approach to protecting data and ensuring compliance.
Your business should run through a risk assessment, developing guidelines and processes that match tolerance for each potential risk. This involves looking at each threat, its chance of impacting your organization, and how much it will cost to mitigate the risk. Of course, the most likely and potentially damaging risks call for the most attention.
Risk assessment and regulatory compliance documentation also involve creating those protocols and plans, and ensuring they are distributed to employees meaningfully. It may include training on compliance for everyone working for the company. It should involve protocols and processes to document proof of compliance and maintain it for potential compliance audits.
Compliance as a Service (CaaS)
Ask your managed service provider if they offer Compliance as a Service (CaaS). For many managed service providers this may be an additional service they can offer, and they may be able help you develop a compliance program and assist you with regular assessments and reviews as required by your compliance documentation.
There is no getting around compliance. And there is no avoiding the need to provide proof of compliance when your organization is audited. We can help you setup a compliance program with the best technology for the job.