Preparing for a successful Compliance and Ethics Week
Although we’ve only just broken out the sunscreen, the time for pumpkin spice will be here before you know it.
This year, autumn will also bring the official Compliance and Ethics Week, which is scheduled for November 5 - 11, 2023. And there’s no time like the present to start planning.
What is Compliance and Ethics Week?
The Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics created Compliance and Ethics Week in 2005. Since then, many companies have celebrated this event in an effort to highlight the importance of compliance and ethics.
In addition to launching annual initiatives like Code of Conduct training or ethical culture surveys, Compliance and Ethics Week is also a chance to bring your organization together to understand the contours of compliance while injecting some fun.
Logistical challenges surrounding Compliance Week
In 2020, Compliance and Ethics week activities went virtual. Since then, many of those activities have continued to occur online, as many people still work from home or only go into the office on a limited number of days. This can limit engagement and reach.
Many companies have to plan events in multiple time zones, or in multiple languages, which can create headaches. Additionally, companies with large manufacturing floors or employees without computer access face unique challenges.
However, most of these difficulties can be overcome with a multi-pronged strategy to drive engagement.
Strategies for a successful Compliance and Ethics Week
Here are a few tricks you can use to ensure everyone is onboard for a fun and informative Compliance and Ethics Week.
Use social media
Throughout Compliance and Ethics week, put daily compliance and ethics-related posts on your company’s internal social media site. Whether it’s Yammer, Facebook for Business, or simply an internal blog, prepare your content and get set for comments.
Write the name of each commenter on a raffle ticket kept with the compliance officer. At the end of the week, pull the names of the winners. Make sure people can enter multiple times by posting throughout the week, which will keep engagement high.
Launch a survey
Create a survey to get employee feedback on the compliance program. This doesn’t have to be a formal Ethics and Compliance survey — it’s best if you give the option to answer anonymously, but also give people the chance to leave their name if they’re open to having their quotes attributed to them.
This will give you further material for communications during and after Compliance and Ethics Week.
Pro tip: make the survey short – 5 questions or less – so that people finish it.
Repost or share compliance content
If you’re posting content throughout Compliance and Ethics Week on your social networks, distribute a raffle ticket each time a person shares compliance-related content or re-shares the posts by the compliance and ethics department.
Put a rule in place that tickets are assigned only for shares that include some sort of comment or question, rather than a straight share without further effort. This will extend the reach of your posts on your internal system and show employees that others are engaged.
Have fun with different forms of media
There’s a reason so many people watch funny videos on YouTube. Everyone enjoys being entertained, especially when it’s a quick distraction from all-day meetings. You can use this to your advantage by finding fun media to share.
This may include:
Videos
Check in with your eLearning training provider to see if they have any short videos that could be sent to the company via email or posted to the internal social media sites.
You can also ask your leaders to post videos supporting Compliance and Ethics Week. In a recent Diligent webinar, Allison Riter shared how nVent did this. You can watch the webinar here.
You can also search for fun, relevant YouTube videos, if your company allows it. Try Compliance the Musical to start.
Memes
Most of us have a favorite meme (a picture with a funny or ironic statement overlayed onto it). Memes are great because they can be added to emails or posted to your internal social network.
Internal TV
Many companies have an internal television station that can be used to disseminate messages or other content. If your company has this, make content for Compliance and Ethics Week.
This can include a short video message from your CEO, trivia about risk and scandal, memes or information about the speak-up hotline. The internal TV station can also play videos from outside providers. Best of all, these types of videos can be shown to your manufacturing floor employees and/or translated with subtitles.
Start preparing
Compliance and Ethics Week is an opportunity not to be missed. If you won’t be ready by November, do not worry!
Compliance and Ethics Week can be any week that makes sense for your company. So no matter what time of year you celebrate, with a little pre-planning, this single week can create a buzz for your compliance program that lasts all year.
Interested in how the Diligent Compliance and Ethics Training Library could potentially support your Compliance and Ethics Week this year? Learn more about our offerings here.
