Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everyone. You've got questions and we've got answers. Welcome to another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast.
The Business Ethics Leadership alliance, or bella, is a global ethics and compliance community that provides exclusive access to helpful data, benchmarking events and other resources to advance your ethics and compliance program.
One of those resources is Bella's Concierge service, in which members can submit any question at all regarding ethics and compliance and our internal experts will provide an answer, plus helpful resources with more information.
Now, while we invite everyone watching and listening to join bella, we know that there's no competition in compliance, so that's why we're using this program to thematically respond to high level questions from the Bella community for the benefit of EC teams everywhere. Joining us once again to answer those questions is Bella chair Erica Salmon Byrne. Erica, it's good to see you again.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Bill, thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Well, the question we have today is around strategic planning and it reads, how do I build a 1-35-roadmap for the ethics and compliance function?
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yep, it's a great question and I was delighted to see this one come in because I think very often, and I hear this from a lot of people in the space, very often we are so stuck in reactive mode that it becomes very challenging to think about how to be proactive with programs. And there's a couple different ways to think about this roadmap opportunity. One is at the what I will call more of the task level. So you could think about a 1-35-roadmap for comms, for example. Very good idea in general to plan out what your multi year communication plan is going to look like, what your multi year training plan is going to look like. So, so that you have an understanding of what the tasks look like ahead of you and you can try your best with that level of proactivity to match your comms and your training to what's happening with the business.
The other thing is you can think about it at the programmatic level. Where is the company going? What are the major things on its strategic roadmap? And how do I then match my compliance team's activities to those strategic priorities? So maybe there's a key product launch coming, maybe there's a supply chain disruption you need to deal with. Maybe you need to think about what it looks like to integrate a new program because your organization's going to engage in merger activity, or maybe there's a divestiture coming and you need to start planning for what it looks like to do that spinoff. So all of those things are business priorities, business strategic direction that the company might be going in that the compliance team needs to be thinking about and prepared for. And that's where this roadmap exercise can come into play. So depending on how your team is structured, you might, for example, example, be thinking about comms with your comms team, either your external community or your internal communications team and the partners you have there, or maybe your communications folks that you have on your ENC team. And then you roll that up to that, that overall 1, 35 roadmap for the program as a whole. But I love this question, Bill, because it says this is a compliance leader that is trying to pull out of reactive mode and get into proactive mode and is really trying to think strateg about where they might be headed with the program and how they're going to effectively mitigate risk.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Budgets are budgets, right? Everybody's always having to fight for resources. Do you have any thoughts on how you can make that 1, 3, 5 year plan with the notion that there may be budgetary turmoil that could possibly complicate that plan and how do you rigorize that whole process?
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I, I think it's a really good point, Bill, and, and, and thank you for asking the follow up so that I can emphasize this piece of it, which is any five year plan, particularly in this business environment, ought to be extraordinarily flexible. I'll put it that way. Right. None of us are today where we thought we would be five years ago. I mean, five years ago, Bill, we were still dealing with the early stages of the pandemic. So life is very different today than it was five years ago. And life will be very different in five years than it is today. We don't really know exactly what's coming. So your, your five, the five year piece of this roadmap needs to be flexible. From a business perspective, a strategy perspective, a risk perspective and a budget perspective.
That three year piece you can be, you can have a little bit more certainty. But I would also argue that things are changing fast enough now that you know, you're not really going to know what's coming in three years. So you can do your best to plan for it, but you better be flexible and build some flexibility into that plan. And then the one year piece, I think is the place where you can be, you know, a little bit more certain in terms of what it is you're hoping to do with the program over the course of the next.
The advantage of doing this 135 process, though, is exactly the point you made about budget, which is if you know what you want to spend the money on, it is easier to advocate for the money. So while there are absolutely, without question budgetary pressures, there are, you know, every organization is trying to figure out what exactly is it that they are going to be focused on from a budgetary perspective and what kind of cuts are they going to be asked to make. If you know where you're going and you know what you need the money for, it becomes an easier conversation with your finance team, particularly if you've given some thought strategically to how your efforts and initiatives are going to underpin the overall success of the business.
So doing this kind of strategic thinking with your team is going to allow you to figure out what are the pieces of information I need to have to be able to say to my finance team, this is going to be the ROI I will get from doing this work. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, one of the things that's on your strategic roadmap is working collaboratively with your HR team to think about how you prepare managers to be effective channels and how you support psychological safety in the workplace. In the workplace.
Well, when you go to make that argument for like, hey, here's the personnel I need for that, here's the money I need for external resources, this is what it will look like from a training perspective. This is the time I'm going to need managers to spend where they won't be doing other work.
You want to go into that conversation with the data points that show that in the long run, if I do this work, these teams will be more productive, we'll have lower turnover. And that's what that. This is what the financial benefit of that is going to look like. And so doing the strategic piece allows you to make the business case as to why you need the funds in the first place, because you're tying it to specific activities that you're asking for that money for.
And then it also allows you to make that case agnostic of regulatory pressures.
So very often, you know, historically speaking, ethics and compliance teams hang their hats on regulatory expectations. And if we are have learned nothing over the course of the last 10 months, it's that regulatory expectations are never certain. Right.
You don't know what's coming from the regulators, you don't know what's coming from some of the, you know, the things that are happening geopolitically that are happening macroeconomically.
And so the more you can tie your strategic planning and your ROI argument to the things that aren't changing, which is people are people, the more you're going to be able to navigate some of these challenging budgetary waters and make the business case that you need the funds that you've, that you've asked for.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Well, Erica, I say this often, but I mean it. I learned something every time you come on the show. So thank you so much for such an insightful answer.
[00:07:27] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: On a really terrific question. So I know it's of great value to our membership and to our audience. And thank you very much for coming on the show.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Oh, Bill, thank you so much for having me back and thank you for asking me once again the perfect follow up question. So you and I have a running joke about the follow up questions, but I really do appreciate the way that you ask the follow up questions because you always solicit additional insights for the audience.
And I really hope everybody out there listening knows that Bill and I mean it when we say it, which is please keep those questions coming because it really does give us the opportunity to knowledge share across the community. And there's a tremendous power in that.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: To learn more about Bella, visit ethisphere.com bella to request guest access to the member resource hub and to speak with the Bella Engagement Director. And if you have a question that you would like answered on this program, contact the Bella Concierge Service and we'll get to work on it for you. This has been another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. Thanks for joining us. We hope you've enjoyed the show. If you haven't already, please like and subscribe to The Ethicast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And be sure to tell a colleague about us as well. It really helps expand the reach of the program. That's all for now, but until next time, remember, strong ethics is good business.
