Compliance teams face more regulation, more change, and more demands than ever before. The traditional workflows that handle requests the same way each time? Those are becoming more trouble than they’re worth, breaking down entirely when there’s a deviation and trying to force unusual requests back into a box.
What does work? Workflows that account for what’s actually happening. This is revolutionizing compliance work across industries, and the numbers prove it.
The Problem with Traditional Workflows
Compliance workflows traditionally operated under the assumption that most situations would be similar enough to handle the same way. Submit the request. Route it to the same people in the same order each time. Document what happened and move on. This made sense for a while in an industry with relatively constant operations and pace of change.
These days, compliance cases vary more than these systems imagined they ever would. A vendor approval that should have been routine may require scrutiny thanks to unexpected terms in the contract. A traditional policy update might require feedback from multiple departments if anything, no matter how small, changed. When the workflow can’t accommodate this change, people begin working around them.
This is where things get messy. The workarounds create blind spots. The steps that normally need to happen are not accounted for in what used to be a tedious but predictable process. Documentation goes missing. Compliance teams lose track of what actually happened.
What Actually Makes Workflows Adaptable
The compliance teams getting the best results are using dynamic workflow software that adapts to the particulars of each situation. Instead of forcing each request to be handled exactly the same way, these workflows allow situations to branch, approvers to expand, and waiting periods to lengthen or shorten to fit what’s actually required.
This doesn’t eliminate the advantages of workflows. It makes them work smarter. The same needs for compliance still exist. They’re just handled in a much more intelligent fashion. If a disclosure presents certain risk factors, the workflow will automatically include any extra steps required to process it. If a policy change impacts something a business unit would be interested in, the workflow will automatically take it into account when getting approval for the change.
It’s easy to see the difference in effectiveness. This compliance team isn’t spending as much of its time battling bureaucracy, so it can focus on actual work. Requests can already be sent to the right people instead of waiting for decision makers to figure this out.
Benefits That Actually Matter
One of the biggest areas of value with this new system is speed. When workflows can adapt to changes needing attention by a human interface, the whole system can move along quickly. But that’s not the only benefit.
Another improvement is accuracy because every request will meet its actual requirements. Compliance teams can set conditional logic to make sure all people who need to be looped in or interested parties are included based on factors that might matter in someone’s approval, such as the monetary value of a request or the percentage of risk involved in an action. No one will be left out because no one planned for this scenario.
Documentation is also easier because adaptive workflows can include extra steps that document everything that happens without needing a human interface to monitor the situation and document relevant details afterward.
One other improvement that makes a difference is that the process doesn’t get stuck in a bottleneck while waiting for approval from a decision maker who just so happens to have several other requests awaiting his or her attention. An adaptable workflow can find ways around them.
The Difference This Makes Beyond the Workflow Itself
Compliance teams have always had to deal with being seen as a hindrance to progress rather than a partner who can make business decisions more accurate and compliant with regulations. The tendency for these teams to make these processes take longer or make people’s lives more difficult reinforces this perception.
Adaptive workflows help remove this perception of compliance teams from the equation. Processes that make sense and that do not waste people’s time on steps that aren’t needed anymore make it less tempting and less intuitive to find a way around these regulations that “slow down” important work.
When people feel that the workflow makes sense and that it creates a vision that meets their needs, they’re less likely to search for a way around these regulations that don’t make their job harder, but actually easier.
How to Adapt Workflows Instead of Throwing Them Away
Transitioning from traditional workflows to adaptive ones will not involve discarding everything a company has built over the years in favor of something new. Most companies will find that the transition process requires developing adaptive workflows in only a few areas.
Some areas of low yield on results include approval processes that seem to need constant adjusting and handling before they can be approved.
When compliance teams create adaptive processes in these areas, managers will see results that are so valuable that they might want to expand this opportunity for efficiency to their other workflows.
Focus not on creating one perfect workflow, but considering all of the situations that should trigger extra steps in handling a request after it has been sent to whoever can give it approval.
Compliance management might have become increasingly difficult over the years, but companies can use tools that are getting smarter every day. The businesses that adapt their workflows to be dynamic and responsive find they don’t need to throw even more people at this problem, and they can keep up with the new expectations and challenges that regulators throw their way.
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