Ensuring that your business complies with your state rules and regulations can be tricky. There are laws, rules, regulations, and ethical practices that businesses are legally required to follow on the federal, state, county, and even city level. And it’s not just that, either. Change is a constant factor when it comes to compliance law. Federal, state, and city governments are continually creating or changing rules that companies must follow. So how do you keep track of it all?
Admittedly, the whole situation seems complicated and daunting. With all of these multilayered compliance laws, it can often feel as though there’s a high risk of unintentionally violating regulations with every decision your business makes.
You can do more than just hope you’ve done everything right. There are concrete steps you can take to ensure that your organization is compliant. Here are a few of our suggestions.
Do Your Research!
The great thing about living in a world dominated by the internet is that information concerning state-specific compliance laws is readily available. Every state has a government website outlining the business regulations for that state in detail. Many county and city governments have similar sites. When in doubt, go online.
If the internet fails you, go to your local government agencies that regulate business and talk to someone who has all the information you need.
Whether you choose the convenience of the internet or the physical presence of another person at your local government offices, it’s always necessary to stay informed. Stay up to date by doing some research on your end.
Always Consult an Attorney
While it’s great that you’ve read up on compliance laws in your state and city, remember to always get legal consultation before you make any decisions. When it involves compliance issues, you’ll always want the advice of an expert to help you evaluate the ways in which your company executes its corporate compliance program well and the ways in which it could improve. To stay out of legal troubles, talk to a lawyer before you do anything compliance-related.
Conduct a Regularly Scheduled Mock Risk Assessment
It’s better to test yourself and find something wrong in a mock risk assessment than to conduct an official risk assessment and get penalized for a compliance violation. Determine your most significant compliance risks and address them before there are real-life business consequences. What are the factors that put your organization behind on the compliance curve? Determine what they are and then adjust accordingly. This step will ensure that you correct any problems before they escalate to something worse.
Document Your Compliance Policy and Re-evaluate Your Policy Yearly
Document your compliance policy and make sure all your employees are familiar with it. Once a year, go through your compliance policy and make sure it’s up to date based on your research and the legal consultation you received previously. If everything is correct, you’re good to go! If there’s anything outdated, revise it to reflect the new changes to federal, state, county, or city compliance regulations. You’ll also want to determine what things you’ve done right so that you can ensure that your company will continue to keep them in your policy. After you’ve made improvements, notify all employees about the changes.
Train, Train, Train
Make sure that you provide required corporate compliance training for your state for all employees and managers. You want to make sure that you opt-in for the most comprehensive, effective, and productive training possible. Reporting that tracks participation and completion in the training is important as well. Do you need state-specific training? Many states, like New York and California, have very particular compliance training standards that businesses have to follow. Find out what your state requires and find training that meets your needs.
Quick pro-tip: make sure your online training program features a robust reporting system so that you can track who has attended their compliance training. Reports are a vital component of eLearning, especially for compliance-related training, because they provide you with proof that the required compliance training has been completed.
Make DigitalChalk your online training solution! Our on-demand course library has everything you need for corporate compliance training. Check out these compliance courses:
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