Following the enactment of Section 34 of PRECCA which makes failure to prevent corruption and money laundering a criminal offence, Smartryk Calitz discusses the importance of effective communication to employees so that they can join the fight.
“The debilitating impact of corruption and money laundering on a company is too big for communications to be a tick box exercise. Internal communication must be purposeful and should resonate with employees. Ultimately, you do not communicate simply to increase awareness – you communicate to bring align your people behind common purpose, and to empower them”.
Suggestions to improve the effectiveness of communication:
- Start strong: Start with a town hall meeting, where an executive explains the importance of compliance, the impact of getting it wrong, and how you’ll be going about getting everybody involved. Stress what’s at stake – it’s not just the company at risk but also the need for good people to stand up and take a stand against corruption, money laundering and fraud.
- Elevate quality: Communicate with the same vigour that you’d apply when communicating to the external market.
- Set objectives: Before compiling the communication, think about what reaction you want from your employees. Construct your communication to achieve a pre-determined ‘connection’.
- Walk About: A casual ‘walk about’ from an executive a day after the communication. Did they understand the message? Have a conversation.
- Practice frequency: A single communication is a tick box exercise and does not cut it. Develop a communication programme which determines frequency. Stick to it.
- Encourage engagement: Digital platforms make engagement easy. Encourage employees to feedback and share their ideas, particular on measure that they’d take to improve compliance. If engagement is low, do the ‘walk about’.
- Stimulate involvement: Create exciting competitions with individual or team prizes for suggestions which reduce risk. Announce the winners, make a fuss of them. Style the competition (e.g. Compliance Superheroes).
- Measure take-up: Use software to measure ‘opens’ and ‘click through’ rates to gauge effectiveness. If your rates are low, don’t blame your employees because you compiled the communication. Review whether your communication is engaging, relevant, and easy to understand.
- Marketing collateral: Digital platforms are effective but, in the workplace, you have an ideal opportunity for an integrated approach. Design posters with creative and impactful messages to capture the imagination of employees.
“It will take a concerted effort by many good companies and people to eradicate corruption and fraud. Section 34 of PRECCA has set the rules but apart from revisiting one’s compliance process and policies, effective communication can make a significant difference”.
Contact MUBESKO AFRICA to assess your compliance policies and processes, identify areas of weakness, develop a communications programme to improve awareness and understanding, and help you to activate measures to reduce risk.
Smartryk Calitz
Head of Forensics
RGA CGMAP CFE
smartryk@mubesko.co.za
mubesko.co.za
Smartryk was honoured as South Africa’s Certified Fraud Examiner of the Year 2023 by the ACFESA’s (Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, South African Chapter).