Whether it’s dealing with a willful toddler, a surly teen, or a business formed of individual employees – a fact of life is that humans don’t always comply with rules. Enterprises are typically savvy in their regulatory compliance approach and are aware of the risks of a lack of policy or procedure. But how do they ensure buy-in from employees and feel confident in their technology?
A Rebellious Workforce
Compliant communications platform provider Global Relay’s recent Industry Insights Survey found that, in 2024, 65.2% of respondents’ biggest compliance challenge when meeting recordkeeping requirements was getting people to adhere to the rules – up from 61.5% in 2023. This is despite more regulatory fines, greater awareness, stricter policies, and better monitoring tools. This could be for a myriad of reasons – perhaps employees are becoming more rebellious so as not to follow the rules, or perhaps company policies are not clear enough to set out what is, and is not, permitted. After all, one cannot be expected to follow rules if they don’t know the rules to begin with.
Understanding Human Motivation
Despite increased regulatory messaging and stricter compliance policies within firms, human behavior remains challenging. Regulators can take disciplinary action against both non-compliant companies and individuals – so why would individuals run the risk of a fine or legal action?
One possible explanation, according to Global Relay, is the growing number of communication channels and ways in which individuals can communicate. With increasing reliance on channels such as LinkedIn for business purposes, it’s all too easy for business and personal use to blur – and there needs to be a disciplined approach to managing both.
Carroll Barry-Walsh, Lawyer and Founder at Barry-Walsh Associates, believes a stumbling block in getting employees to comply with regulations is “mixed messages”. Employees are pressured to deal with issues quickly and across various communication methods. Quick and easy comms channels can therefore be used incorrectly – even if, usually, the motivation is not nefarious. Barry-Walsh recommends three guidelines to help employees not make mistakes:
- Do you really need to write this down? And in this way? Think before pressing send.
- Don’t write anything down that you aren’t prepared to potentially defend in years to come.
- If you wouldn’t like your mother to see it, don’t write it down or send it.
As Barry-Walsh concludes, “99% of what is in your head is not worth making public in a professional environment – and probably not anywhere else either.” She also recommends sharing examples of ‘comms gone wrong’ with employees to drive this message home.
Technical Difficulties
Regulators have made it clear – particularly in the US – that they will take a zero-tolerance approach to firms that do not comply with business communication and recordkeeping guidelines. Aside from the quirks of human behavior, another barrier to compliance – according to Global Relay’s research – is the apparent limitations of technological solutions.
In 2024, the number of respondents that said they have difficulty capturing and storing communication data across all channels has risen by 3.9% to 27% – up from 23.1% in 2023. Conversely, 23.4% of respondents said that they had difficulty monitoring all communication channels in 2024, which has decreased significantly from 53.8% in 2023.
The list of communication channels used in many businesses is broad and continues to grow. From Bloomberg to ICE chat, Teams to Zoom – there’s so much for employees to get to grips with. Throw into the mix social media channels, and it’s a veritable communications stew – with each new ingredient bringing a new data gathering challenge to wrestle with. As Rob Mason, Director of Regulatory Intelligence at Global Relay, notes:
“Communication channels continue to spring up. Front office colleagues like to be able to accommodate their clients and so are keen to chat to them on the channel of communication of the client’s choosing.”
Strong technology solutions deliver flexibility to manage these new communication channels and are an essential part of the compliance puzzle. This technology must also be tested routinely to assure a client that it can manage multiple and competing demands. Data connectors, for example, can capture communication data from different channels uniformly format and index that data and make sense of it safely and securely. This allows companies to maintain a clear and complete repository of business communications, which they can quickly navigate in the event of regulatory investigation. Communication surveillance tools allow firms to monitor what employees are saying, so they can detect risk at an earlier stage too.
“This all comes down to technology. Technology has improved to make it simpler to monitor or supervise communication. But it is also technological innovation that means there is always a new compliance tool to capture, making that harder simultaneously. Technology is to blame – for both the good and the bad.”
- Pankaj Anand, Head of Governance Technology Solutions, StoneX.
For firms that struggle to keep business communications compliant, technology providers such as Global Relay provide advanced tools that enable complete compliance while simultaneously boosting resilience and efficiency. Find out more at Global Relay.
