This Compliance Officer Day, We All Deserve Some Headspace

2020 continues to be a challenging year full of unique risks for compliance and ethics professionals. The Covid-19 pandemic’s direct impact on our collective health and wellness, and personal and professional relationships, has added stress and anxiety to our daily lives in and out of work.

We should also take a moment to recognize how resilient our ethics and compliance community has been through it all. The fifth annual Compliance Officer Day is taking place September 26th. With it comes an opportunity to step back, reflect on what a year it has been and provide a simple but impactful source of relief.

Compliance Officer Day is about recognizing the importance of ethics and compliance professionals and encouraging self-care to ensure their work can continue, efficiently and creatively. For 364 days a year, your time is spent taking care of everyone else. On this one day, please, take care of yourself.

This year, we’ve brought that perspective to life in a way that is more actual and actionable; we’re giving away the gift of Headspace. Meditation and mindfulness are scientifically proven to heighten focus, reduce stress, improve sleep quality, and increase compassion. Headspace is an app that teaches people how to meditate, and it can make a big difference in your physical and mental well-being in a few minutes each day.

You can try it for free, or to take advantage of a 30-day membership that comes with all of their classes and features. All we ask is that you tell us a story. Something about your year that may inspire others or help give them a sense of comfort that they aren’t alone in some of the challenges they’ve been experiencing. If you write it down and share it with us, we’ll send you a gift code via email. It won’t violate your hospitality policy, but it is scientifically proven to help combat some of the feelings you may be experiencing.

Positively influencing thousands of your colleagues’ behavior in a way that aligns with regulatory expectations, compliance obligations, corporate policies, and ethical values has never been easy. Decentralizing your offices into thousands of remote locations, without the benefit of face-to-face communication and culture-building, has only added another level of complexity.

Research conducted in June by our friends at the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic has made the jobs of ethics and compliance teams even more difficult.

• 78% of compliance professionals reported a shift to a remote office environment, and 35% have experienced an increase in the number of compliance inquiries from their organization.
• Collaboration rates have gone up, as high as 47% with leadership teams, but 77% of compliance professionals reported an increased risk of compliance failures based on their internal risk assessment.

We’ve all been trying our best to keep it together through a rollercoaster of unfortunate news, divisive cultural events, and widespread environmental tragedy. I can only hope that in 2021, things are a little bit easier, and we can tell these stories to each other at an industry conference or networking event.

Until then, let’s do what we can to learn from each other, stay connected, and be healthy.

Read Compliance Officer Day Stories of 2020. Want to share your story? Start here.