The Right Regulatory Change Management Framework

There are new and exciting possibilities in the world of regulatory change. The focus and importance placed by banks and financial institutions on regulatory change management is nothing new; organizations have taken regulatory change seriously from the very beginning. What is new is the modern, digital approach towards it. It is now possible to manage regulatory changes better, faster, and at a lesser cost than ever. If organizations truly want to benefit from this paradigm shift they need to create a regulatory change framework that delivers the performance they need.

Understanding the regulatory change management framework

Regulatory change management isn’t just an act or a process – it is a framework, a structure with many components, all crucial to ensure it remains functioning properly. A company’s regulatory change issues cannot be fixed just by focusing on one component – be it employees, technology, or size of the regulatory department within the company. Only organizations that holistically focus on the framework will be truly able to transform to the point where regulatory change management is a competitive advantage for them.

Let’s look at the three crucial parts of the regulatory change management framework

• Personnel
• Tools
• Culture

Personnel

Organizations need to ensure that they have the human resources required to manage regulatory change in a satisfying manner. This means that the people employed in the compliance department must be skilled and motivated enough to do good work. This also means that there should be enough people in the department to meet the regulatory needs of the organization.

Tools

What tools do the people handling regulatory change management have access to? This is of vital importance. An organization can hire a lot of people and make sure that they are skilled and motivated, but if these people are not given the right tools to work with, they will not be able to deliver a good performance.

Culture

The organization also needs to have the right attitude towards managing regulatory changes. This means that upper management should focus on regulatory changes, and empower the middle-managers and officers to be diligent about managing change properly. Merely creating the right rules and policies is not enough – there should be a culture that correlates with those rules and regulatory policy as well.

Understanding where problems occur

Look at companies in the financial sector and it will become apparent that the problem isn’t with the employees at those organizations. Financial organizations are (understandably) committed to vetting their employees properly and hiring only highly qualified people. Most of the people in these organizations that handle regulatory change have the education, the experience, and the skills needed to do the job. The problem lies in tools and the culture.

Organizations do not provide their employees with the right tools for the job, which results in reduced efficiency. If regulatory changes are being managed with the help of general-purpose off-the-shelf applications like Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel then it isn’t surprising if there are a lot of regulatory issues in the organizations.

Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are both excellent applications. There is no word processor better than Word and no spreadsheet application better than Excel. However, these applications are only good for the documentation related to regulatory changes, and do not aid in change management in any way, because they weren’t built for that purpose.

If an organization needs better performance from its regulatory change personnel, it needs to ensure that they have the right tools for the job. This means a proper regulatory change management application that allows the organization’s employees to work better and faster.

Creating the right culture

Organizations struggle with creating the right culture even though they realize the importance of having the right culture. No management wants there to be a bad regulatory change management culture in their organization – the wrong culture is only able to thrive because of the lack of a proper system. If things are being managed manually then mistakes are to be expected. It is impossible to tackle regulatory change properly without the aid of the right tools. Employees can try their best, but the unreasonably difficult manual process can only do so much.

When the culture is right, the employees are empowered to come up with solutions for regulatory issues of the future. When the culture is wrong, employees are barely keeping up with existing regulations and ensuring that the company does not become non-compliant. If companies want the right culture in their organization, they need to put a focus on giving their employees the right tools.

If your organization is not happy with their regulatory change management process or the associated costs, look at what an A.I. powered regulatory change management system can do for your organization. Get in touch with us to arrange a live demo of the Predict360 Regulatory Change Management module or sign up for a 30-day free trial.

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.

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