Tunisia: Compliance Metrics and Performance Indicators on the Rise
In today’s complex regulatory landscape, Tunisian companies are under pressure to demonstrate effective compliance with local, national, and international laws. A robust compliance program is no longer a nicety but a necessity for businesses seeking to avoid reputational damage, costly fines, and enforcement actions.
Measuring Compliance Effectiveness in Tunisia
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has emphasized the importance of measuring compliance effectiveness in its updated Corporate Compliance Programs guidelines. The DOJ now asks three critical questions when investigating a company:
- Is the organization’s compliance program well-designed?
- Is the program being applied earnestly and in good faith, e.g., is it being implemented effectively?
- Does the program work in practice?
Importance of Compliance Metrics
The updated guidance includes two critical sentences:
- “Have the policies and procedures been published in a searchable format for easy reference?”
- “Does the company track access to various policies and procedures to understand what policies are attracting more attention from relevant employees?”
These sentences emphasize the importance of compliance program performance metrics, specifically which policies are garnering employee engagement. Tunisian companies must have the data to prove their compliance efforts, or risk further scrutiny.
Measuring Compliance Effectiveness: A Delicate Balance
Measuring compliance effectiveness is not a simple task. With numerous sources of data, including culture surveys, risk assessments, disclosures, and helpline reports, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Tunisian companies must identify their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and use them to track progress over time.
Compliance KPIs: What to Measure
Some suggested compliance KPIs for Tunisian companies include:
- Number of times and how often code and policies are reviewed and/or updated
- Number and nature of code and policy violations
- Culture surveys and knowledge assessments results
- Training reach, medium, frequency, and completion rates
- Reach, medium, frequency, and engagement rates of compliance communications
- Training program update rates
- Post-training test results
- Number and nature of incidents by employees who have completed training
Choosing the Right Compliance KPIs
Tunisian companies must understand what data they currently have access to. They can then put each data point in context, both to understand how to interpret it, and to evaluate how relevant it is to their compliance program’s goals and regulatory requirements.
Tracking Progress Over Time
The rise in stakeholder capitalism means that regulators, employees, and customers demand more from the companies they regularly interact with. Tunisian companies must track improvement over time using the same set of benchmarks to reveal their organization’s biggest compliance strengths and weaknesses.