“I am volunteering at an animal hospital. I was told I require compliance pre-clearance.
–Frustrated Employee
I find it hard to believe that helping wounded dogs and sick cats can conflict with my job.
This feels like an invasion of my personal freedom.”
Spending weekends volunteering at an animal hospital definitely does seem like a personal pursuit. However, let’s cut your compliance officer a break – enforcing conflicts compliance policies is not easy.
The impact of any such activities has the potential to go far beyond benefits to the community personal fulfilment.
The only way to ensure that this activity is as benign to the company’s interests as it sounds is to follow the compliance pre-approval process to ensure alignment with company policies.
It helps not just the company but you as well. Let’s understand why.
The Deeper Impact
Let us say your organization is a pharmaceutical company. Depending on how things turn out, there can be a potential allegations that your company’s employees (you) were volunteering at an animal hospital to conduct tests on the animals that are otherwise prohibited. Or, say, it was not prohibited but frowned upon, and you were doing so to avoid blow-back from PETA. Suddenly, this incredibly rewarding activity has turned into a source of hurtful allegations, especially since you don’t know how things can turn out in the future and appear twisted in hindsight. Compliance pre-approval gives the company a chance to review, predict and pre-address such issues.
Let us look at another possibility. Let’s say you are chatting with your co-volunteers and it turns out that the casual chat on the project you are on at work turns out to be confidential information revealed to a competitor’s employee. With the benefit of being an industry insider, the co-volunteer may be able to piece together far more than you intended to reveal.
Yet another possibility is that your innocent discussion happened to be in the nature of inside information that your co-volunteers used undertake market trades he/she couldn’t or shouldn’t have.
Or, it may simply be that the timings that you wish to volunteer at clash with an organizational project or deadline, leaving you with reduced time or energy (or both) to meet your organizational obligations.
The possibilities are endless and as far-fetched as some of these may appear, a compliance pre-approval process is simply the smarted approach and gives the organization a chance to ‘pre-mind’ you of such matters or aspects as a refresher to avoid pitfalls.
Navigating Compliance for Outside Activities
These are just some of the numerous reasons that organizations have established a compliance pre-approval process.
The point is, one just doesn’t know until one asks.
As far back as 2018 in the United States alone, companies were subject to $3.945 billion (~INR 335325 Million) in penalties and another $794 million in judgments related to investigations and complaints. FINRA additionally imposed $61 million in fines. Compliance review, investigations, fines and penalties have only gone up since then, Companies are required to take all regulatory compliance matters seriously and this is to the benefit of all, including you as a stakeholder.
Even though volunteering may be unpaid, seeking formal approval for this outside activity ensures transparency and helps establish that your role at the animal hospital wouldn’t conflict with my professional responsibilities to your organizations or its clients and stakeholders. It helps establish trust and accountability with your employer, demonstrating a commitment to workplace ethics. Adhering to ethical policies not only protects your integrity, something that is particularly important for employees in industries where reputational risk and confidentiality are critical concerns. Lastly, by obtaining a documented and formal compliance approval, you ensure that you have proactively protected your personal interests and your professional reputation along with a record of transparency that can be referred to if any questions arise.
Compliance is more than just a formality or a ‘tick-the-box’ irritation; it’s a safeguard for both employees and organizations. Evolved organizations often choose to invest in policies and procedures supported by compliance software systems such as Affinis(OBA).
Volunteering on weekends may seem like a strictly personal endeavour at first blush, but its impact may resonate deeply in professional settings. Simply pre-managing compliance requirements reduces risk to you and your employer with transparency and accountability.
