Creating an Organizational Culture Where GRC Thrives

GRC increases compliance levels, enhances risk management, and results in better governance, but it needs the right organizational culture to thrive. Some businesses see minor improvements after GRC implementations while others see complete transformations, and the only difference is in the culture.

This phenomenon isn’t unique to GRC. Businesses went through the same process when information technology systems were being implemented 2-3 decades ago. Businesses quickly realized that their employees were not being as productive as they could be. They discovered that many employees disliked the new systems and actively avoided them as much as possible, which made the whole integration inefficient.

Understanding Underlying Issues That Cause Problems with GRC Adoption

The best thing that management can do if they are facing issues related to employees not using or adopting GRC technology is to find out why employees are hesitating. The results of this will vary depending on the organization and many other factors.

Check out our recent blog post Why do ween need GRC Technology.

Many businesses will find that the problem is technology knowledge. Many employees are not comfortable with new technologies, but they do not want to be vocal about it because they are embarrassed at their own inability to understand new technologies. This problem is easy to solve – businesses need to ensure that if they are implementing a GRC tool, they also need to ensure that they create guides which employees can access when needed.

Getting the people who are facing issues and directly training them is efficient, but the problem is that many employees feel that they are highlighting their own incompetence if they sign up for such a training. It is thus much better to make training materials available to the whole organization. They can reference the material whenever they face a problem.

The Importance of Employee Feedback

There is another underlying issue which creates these problems – the lack of feedback. When businesses implement any major technology there is a lot of focus on making the implementation successful. There is a lot of focus on ensuring that all employees are using the new technology. This focus can feel like pressure to employees. The employees know that management wants them to use the new technology which has just been implemented and feel that if they have problems with the new technology they may be perceived as having the wrong attitude.

This leads to an inefficient technology implementation that is unable to meet the needs of the business. People at the front line using the technology implementation have valuable feedback to give. They know the intricacies and practicalities of the work processes they follow better than the management. If they say that there is a problem in the implementation, they need to be heard. This applies to GRC solutions and all other technology implementations. Creating a way for employees to contribute their ideas and give their feedback allows you to accordingly tweak the GRC solution, which in turn increases productivity and efficiency.

Cultures Are Grown, Not Enforced

Another important thing to remember when setting out to create the right culture for GRC is that cultures cannot be enforced. GRC isn’t a one time process or technology – it is a new way of managing governance, risk, and compliance. The problem with enforcement is that it only works under supervision and monitoring. Thus, people will still make the same wrong choices if they are not being monitored. Culture takes more time to be formed but it results in compliance without needing supervision or monitoring. People do the right thing even if no one is watching them, because that is the organizational culture.

Every business that wants to improve the way its employees interact with technology implementations needs to focus on its culture. If employees are provided the right environment, materials, and training they will become more efficient and will not hesitate in using new technologies.

About the Company

360factors, Inc. (Austin, TX) helps companies improve business performance by reducing risk and ensuring compliance. Predict360, its flagship software product, vertically integrates regulations and requirements, policies and procedures management, risks and controls, audit management and inspections, and on-line training and qualifications, in a single cloud-based platform based on artificial intelligence.

Remain up-to-date on industry news/updates through our Twitter & Linkedin profiles.