Every company relies on seamless internal communication to handle daily operations and achieve short-term and long-term goals and objectives. However, only some utilize communication tools that help employees comply with the laws and regulations in their specific country, state, or industry.
Regulatory compliance when exchanging messages and emails and talking on the phone is crucial for office workers. However, it gives new meaning to hybrid and remote teams, who exclusively communicate in digital format. That’s where rule violations, intentional or otherwise, are most likely to occur. Turning a blind eye or unknowingly letting them happen puts business finances and reputation at stake.
Here are the top workplace communication compliance challenges and solutions to ensure transparency and security.
- Multiple communication tools create data silos.
Most companies use multiple communication tools to share announcements, files, documents, project updates, and other crucial information. Those primarily include email, instant messaging apps, and video conference platforms.
Those tools are necessary for seamless communication and collaboration since they help employees stay on the same page and increase efficiency and productivity.
However, using multiple platforms for work-related interactions can create data silos. Those can put barriers to sharing information and gaining a holistic view of corporate data, preventing leaders from ensuring privacy and security.
A communication compliance platform can break data silos, helping employers regulate and manage workplace interactions from one centralized place. An AI-powered solution with NLP capabilities can detect potential employee misconduct or market abuse and send proactive alerts to help ensure compliance.
The best platforms offer hybrid surveillance, monitoring all integrated communication channels to ensure compliance and protect data.
- Not all informal channels ensure regulatory compliance.
You’ll hardly find an employee who doesn’t use at least one informal channel to chat with colleagues or customers. Instant messaging apps have taken over the world, helping us exchange messages in seconds.
According to a Gartner survey, 80% of employees used collaboration tools for work-related interactions in 2021 – 36% more workers than two years earlier. However, many informal communication channels don’t have adequate features for ensuring regulatory compliance, such as encryption and data privacy. For instance, only some are HIPAA-compliant, and not every respects GDPR policies.
They also lack valuable features like employee misconduct monitoring, market abuse detection, and AI-powered proactive alerts. However, many compliance-first platforms with those features often don’t support chatting, making employees switch back to familiar apps. A platform streamlining workplace communication while ensuring workers comply with the laws and regulations is critical.
- Unvetted workplace communications are compliance risks.
Like informal communication channels, unvetted workplace interactions are significant compliance risks. Companies must have a holistic view of all internal conversations to comply with their industry’s or region’s regulations.
It doesn’t matter if they must follow CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), VCDPA (Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act), GDPR, or the upcoming Colorado Privacy Act (CPA) regulations. Vetting workplace communications is critical to avoid potential violations and hefty fines. Failing to do so is too risky, primarily because digital channels pose significant cybersecurity threats.
Besides not utilizing adequate tools, many organizations don’t bother vetting workplace communications because it’s time-consuming and energy-draining.
Employees also don’t have sufficient time to re-read messages before sending them to ensure they don’t violate compliance rules. They focus on the tasks at hand.
Many employees rarely (if ever) think about regulatory compliance when chatting with co-workers. Customer service agents could also unintentionally violate the rules and risk data privacy when replying to messages. Let’s not forget potential insider trading, bribery, and other unethical practices.
These risks put the significance of monitoring and regulating workplace communications into perspective.
- Workstream collaboration tools are ideal for compliance.
Workstream collaboration tools and compliance are a match made in regulatory heaven. These platforms keep records of all internal communications for full transparency and accountability.
The best part is they don’t put communication in the back seat. Besides enhancing team collaboration, they help employees follow the best practices for complying with the laws and regulations.
They provide a centralized hub for discussions and sharing information in audio, video, and text format. They allow customization to tailor the interface, tasks, and alerts to your specific business operations for better governance and compliance.
- Companies increasingly provide communication compliance training.
Communication compliance training is quickly joining other courses new and existing employees must take to become their company’s valuable assets instead of liabilities.
Educating them on behavioral communication and other practices for data protection and privacy will help them shield personal and sensitive data.
Besides understanding corporate policies, they’ll learn to follow regulatory compliance guidelines and manage risks. They’ll know how to meet ethical standards, take corrective actions to reduce or eliminate risk, and use appropriate language in all communications.
This training goes hand in hand with cybersecurity training since digital communication tools open the door to potential cyberattacks.
Conclusion
Workplace communication compliance has never been more critical. Remote and hybrid work models are here to stay, bringing as many challenges as benefits to a digital workspace, including regulatory risks. Companies looking to swim upriver with the ever-changing regulatory landscape must prioritize compliance. Communication compliance and workstream collaboration tools are their best bet to streamline workflows and improve transparency, accountability, and security.
