Let’s talk about compliance analytics. Are you asking the right questions?

Last year, we launched our Drive Analytics™ solution for courseware. The idea behind the solution was simple: Compliance practitioners needed a better way to measure the effectiveness of their training and move toward an “evidence-based” program strategy. We partner with clients to identify the insights they need, collect the data organically, and make targeted recommendations so they can focus on what gets results.

Seeing our clients’ real-life experience with the service has reinforced our deep belief that technology alone is not enough. Instead, to get meaningful analytics in compliance, we need to combine effective technology with human intelligence and experience.

This is the only way to make sure we’re asking — and employees are answering — the right questions.

Numbers, on their own, don’t mean much. When we were first developing our Drive Analytics™ service, we heard from many compliance professionals who were sitting in front of a dashboard or a big Excel sheet full of numbers that didn’t deliver the insights they’d hoped.

Seeing our clients’ real-life experience with the service has reinforced our deep belief that technology alone is not enough.

As one of our clients so memorably put it: “I hear the word ‘analytics,’ and I think, ‘So what’?” In other words: Is this going to be just a data dump in a pretty design, or is it actually going to help me build a better compliance program?

Since then, we’ve used our Drive Analytics™ offering to help clients gauge, for example:

  • What percentage of employees give or receive gifts at work — and, of those, how many actually know the rules?
  • Do employees who suddenly found themselves working from home during the pandemic really feel equipped to protect the private information they work with every day?
  • Do employees view managers as ethics resources? What about senior leaders?
  • To which ethics and compliance channel would employees feel most comfortable bringing a concern?
  • Have employees experienced, witnessed, or heard about retaliation at work?
  • Have they used the helpline? Or the Code? Have they consulted any compliance policies in the last year? If so, did they find them useful?
  • Do employees know how to get in touch with company export experts if they have a question?
  • What keeps employees coming to work every day? What makes them proud to work for the company?

Imagine having not just anecdotes but true data-driven insights about your compliance risk management efforts.

Being able to generate hard data on qualitative topics like these has given clients a new ability to assess, review, and improve the effectiveness of their compliance programs — and back up their decisions with evidence.

Once we saw how well this worked, it was a no-brainer to extend the same approach to Codes of Conduct.

Historically, Codes were just another policy. While compliance teams put a great deal of time, thought, and resources into developing and revising them, they tended to have very little insight into how, how often, or even whether their Codes were being used in practice.

Imagine having not just anecdotes but true data-driven insights about your compliance risk management efforts.

But now that we live in a digital world, the game has changed. More is possible (and just in time, too, given recent DOJ guidance!).

For organizations using our digital Code format plus our Drive Analytics™ service, it’s now possible to track things like:

  • Daily/weekly/cumulative total visitors
  • Visitor locations
  • Number of visits per topic
  • Activities per session, time per session, total active time
  • Devices, browsers, and screen resolutions used
  • Functionality monitoring (e.g., “rage” clicks, “dead” clicks)
  • Referring domains (i.e., where did visitors come from?)
  • Activity reporting (i.e., did they engage in a specific activity, such as playing a video?)

But, to quote our client, “So what?” What does this all add up to?

Well, imagine this:

What if your Code could serve as the landing page for your compliance program — a one-stop shop for key compliance resources.

Instead of hunting around through various policies and documents (some on paper, some on various websites or SharePoint sites), your employees can now click one link and access the Code from their phone, desktop, or tablet. From there, they can review the relevant Code guidance or click through to more detailed policies and resources. Even if these are stored in different places, the Code can serve as an index and a guide.

If employees decide they want to make a report or ask a question, they can click a link to go to the online helpline portal or send an email or message to the Compliance team.

Meanwhile, you can track all of this activity. You can see how many employees consult the Code, where they go, and how they use it. And, over time, you can tweak and adjust the Code to better suit their needs, just like websites do.

Even better, you’re not just getting a data dump — you have a partner in analyzing and interpreting what you learn. Your Rethink team takes the first pass at reviewing the results, analyzing them in the context of what we know about your audience, culture, brand, risks, and compliance program goals.

Once, twice, or four times a year, at your choosing, we deliver an executive summary report, presenting the data and providing observations and recommendations for responding to it — subject to your feedback, of course.

Not all data matters. But the right data, at the right time, can be powerful.

As Fast Company put it in a fascinating article about using data to drive social change: “[D]ata is among the most powerful, under-utilized, and incompletely understood forces in ... problem solving…. At its best, it allows us to be results-driven, finding out what works — under what conditions — and using that information both to improve our programs and organizations, and to make resource allocation decisions more effectively.”

Not all data matters. But the right data, at the right time, can be powerful.

It’s time to harness that power in your Code. Our Drive Analytics™ solution combines technology with human intelligence to give you practical, actionable insights about your Code and your compliance program.

Want to learn more about what our Drive Analytics™ solution can help you achieve? Visit rethinkcompliance.com/drive-analytics or contact us for a free consultation.