Although a recent audit by our compliance consultants has shown an improvement since our last audit, we feel that there is still a long way to go to put compliance firmly in the forefront of all our sales procedures and compliance activities.
One solution we believe as a start, was to find a way to effectively communicate compliance issues to colleagues. Over the years we have used Pinks and emails in conjunction with our compliance manual however we believe that this now needs to be streamlined so that the compliance manual becomes the main referral point going forward. Any email correspondence will refer to pages in the manual and all documents issued will form part of the manual.
Throughout 2017, Mike will be therefore be updating the compliance manual and sections that don’t currently apply to us will be removed and all chapters will be personalised. The Manual will also include all forms, flow charts, procedures manuals and a list of our letter suite. This will mean that on completion, all information will be held in one place and be on the desk top of all our PC`s.
The changes will also include much greater control of Read and Understood responses to any communication including completing compliance modules on Broker Assess and compliance assessments. Any communication will require an email response that the item has been read and understood and Mike will keep a central spreadsheet and chase staff directly until a response is received or a module completed with Managers being copied in the email.
The first chapter to be dealt with is the one relating to Complaints and an easy flow chart will be included so all staff could quickly understand the procedure including when and who they passed the complaint on to.
In conjunction with this Mike will also be issuing a quick Pink of the Day which will be just a quick email reminder to staff of current issues but again referring to the manual. For example it could just be a quick 2 line reminder about contract certainty etc.
I appreciate that this forms only a small part of the work we need to do on Compliance however I think it is a good start for 2017.
Thank you
Jeanette