Creating a corporate culture in which employees naturally embrace ethical conduct over non-compliant action is a top priority for compliance programs these days. Dynamic, innovative companies are both advantaged and disadvantaged in this arena, said compliance officers from Google and Paypal at the 2011 Compliance Week Annual Conference in Washington last week.
On the one hand, an open culture of ideas facilitates open conversations about compliance, where employees aren’t afraid to step forward with questions or with problems they’ve spotted, agreed the panelists at the popular “Culture and Compliance” session. On the other hand, sometimes innovators don’t see ‘no’ as ‘no,’ but rather as a point of departure for a conversation on compliance—which can get tricky for compliance officers.
