Compliance managers have always had a lot on their plates, but in recent years, their workload and the demands placed on them have only increased. Research from Regology shows that 92% of compliance professionals believe their job has become more difficult.
One of the core reasons for this is a more complex regulatory landscape. The latest PwC Global Compliance Survey finds that 85% of compliance and governance leaders believe compliance requirements have become more complex over the past few years. And this means it is harder for compliance teams to stay on top of everything: the Regology survey finds that nearly 44% of compliance professionals struggle to keep up with regulatory changes.
More complex and faster-evolving compliance requirements ramp up the pressure on compliance teams, not only because of stakeholder demands but also because there has not always been investment in additional team members or technology to handle the extra workload. Nervous executives stress the urgency of compliance, but compliance teams are required to do more with fewer resources.
Audit challenges with compliance policy management
The sharp end of greater compliance complexity and resourcing challenges is often felt in audits. Compliance audits can feel like a tightrope walk, partly because there is a lot to cover, but also because you have to rely on the actions of people around the business who are already “maxed out”, yet responsibility ultimately falls on your shoulders. The result is that some audits are stressful rather than straightforward for compliance teams.
There are also particular challenges relating to policy management, especially in providing evidence required for an audit to show that staff have read policies and procedures. Some compliance teams still have to rely on manual or partly manual approaches, sending emails to have employees confirm they have read a policy and then logging the replies in a spreadsheet.
There may also be a similarly painful manual exercise in asking policy owners to ensure their policies are up to date.
Resorting to manual approaches leads to multiple problems:
Compliance teams burn vast amounts of time on mindless admin, inevitably making the audit a “mad scramble” to get everything done.
There is a greater risk of errors and things getting missed, for example, with policies that aren’t up to date, or disappointing low compliance rates around reading mandatory policies.
Reporting remains manual and even unconvincing, so compliance is not strongly verified for the auditors.
There is an absence of audit trails or logs relating to policy management.
The whole audit experience leads to frayed nerves for the compliance team and potentially for your senior leaders.
What is an audit-ready policy system?
But compliance audits don’t have to be stressful.
An audit-ready policy system or software provides peace of mind across all aspects of policy management for an upcoming audit. It means everything is in place and up to date for policy management.
More broadly, it is a compliance automation platform: one that removes manual effort and human error from policy lifecycle management, replacing spreadsheets, email chains and ad hoc processes with automated, auditable workflows.
All the associated challenges of an audit around manual reporting, the mad rush to gather evidence, and the heightened risk of errors are gone, thanks to a combination of automation, relevant features, and the right bells and whistles.
What does an audit-ready policy system look like?
An audit-ready policy solution such as Xoralia will tick several critical boxes.
The benefits of being audit-ready
Being audit-ready has multiple benefits.
The power of audit-ready policy management
When you’re audit-ready, you’re in a position of strength and back in control of policy management. A solution like Xoralia is essential to achieving audit readiness and positioning your compliance function as a modern, automation-led operation rather than a reactive, manual one.
If you want to see what an audit-ready policy system looks like in action, then book a free Xoralia demo.
Frequently asked questions
What is an audit-ready policy solution?
An audit-ready policy solution is software that ensures organisations are always ready for upcoming compliance audits in policy management. It means that policies are all up to date, there is evidence that employees have read and understood them, and critical elements are in place, such as audit trails.
What are the main elements of an audit-ready policy management solution?
An audit-ready policy management solution typically provides easy access to policies for employees, attestation features to verify that employees have read the policies, comprehensive reporting, workflows to support policy lifecycle management, and automation to eliminate inefficient manual processes.
What are the benefits of being audit-ready?
Being audit-ready reduces the stress associated with compliance audits, removes manual effort and saves time, lessens the risk of errors, and ultimately supports better regulatory compliance. It can also help foster a culture of compliance and free up time for compliance professionals.
Dan Hawtrey is CEO of Content Formula and the driving force behind Xoralia, a policy management platform built natively on Microsoft 365. Dan writes regularly on policy management, compliance, and the evolving role of AI in how organisations manage knowledge. His articles are grounded in real conversations with the companies and teams using Xoralia day to day.
In a 30-minute demo you will see how Xoralia runs inside your own Microsoft 365 tenant - from distribution and attestation through to a continuously built audit trail.
