Ensuring Compliance

For a long time I have wondered how to effectively manage organizations. I was disgruntled as a manager. While I put on a brave face, I know I was not happy with the way my team and company operated. One problem always escaped me. The problem was simple. We have been told to Manage By Objective(MBO) (Refer to Kaplan’s Balance Score Card, a must read, wonderful book for all managers. The gist of the book is simple. Set out a clear and simple set of objectives at a company level and make sure that every employee in the organization is measured on some of these objectives). Makes perfect sense. But in reality life is not so orderly. While we set out clear objectives how do we ensure that employees are evolving at the changing needs of the organization?

In many regulated industries like insurance Outsourcing, financial, healthcare, & defense there is another major problem of being audited for compliance. These organizations have to prove how they are in compliance with their Company Policies (CPs). Companies spend millions of dollars in trying to provide auditable proof every year. To understand this better, please read “Are you ready to deal with the new federal regulations and take on external auditors?”

Back to my own story… I would get irritated with management gurus when they preached about making sure that people are trained for their jobs as the prime driver for success. I would ask “But HOW????” I would say “Jim, out here in the real world things are different. I have to make my numbers for today and take care of my customers tomorrow”.

Sound familiar?

My frustration continued till one day one of my partners came into my office and said “I got it!”. I looked up mildly interested and asked “Got what”? He excitedly replied in one long sentence that lasted for 23 minutesJ! The gist of his monolog is that we needed a tool that would measure not just learning commitment at an employee level but provide a snapshot/forecast at a company level. This tool would recalculate the company compliance requirements at a click of button for every changing requirement from the market. This was brilliant! This would improve the PQR (P=productivity, Q=Quality, R=Revenue) of the entire organization and avoid the frustration of people are not performing because they are not trained right. It would also completely eliminate breaking into a cold sweat when your customer said the word “audit”!

We all got so excited about the idea that we did what we knew best. Built a tool and started using it. For the first time we had a simple tool that enabled us to measure and manage employee and company compliance. We started training and assessing our employees on ‘VA Comply’. Once we started using the tool at an organizational level, we could take care of our compliance problems by simply drilling down each department in a proactive manner. This has helped us save hours of effort and has created a more productive organization.

By tying an employee performance to their compliance scores, we realized that there is a strong correlation between employee skill compliance and employee performance. This was positively fantastic! This was exactly what the pundits talked about but we now had a tool to actually implement their strategies to success!

As we went along we realized the far reaching effect this product can have in industries like the retail telecom where the difference between a good and the average retail sales person is nearly 500 times Manage By Objective(MBO) (Reference to book: CRM at the speed of light).

In an down market like we are currently in, we realized that our customers and prospects can further gain from a product like VA Comply to ensure that their employees are optimally trained for the job that they are doing. This compliance mindset has been immensely beneficial to every organization that we have worked with. When we showed VA Comply to one of our partners he told us “This is the product that we have always been looking for”! We quietly smiled in agreement. A smile that comes from realizing that someone perceives value from the work we have done.

Let us look at what this product has helped us achieve:

1. Helped make sure that employees are trained and qualified for the job that they are doing

2. External audits are now a breeze when compared to the alternative

3. Helped us ensure that employees are in-line with the company growth

4. Converted our organization from being reactive to proactive

If you want to learn more about VA Comply, Click on the link below to see a demo of VA Comply (NOTE: Please use Internet Explorer). Further, we can arrange for a 1 on 1 demonstration of how the product can be used to solve your specific problem.

Contact VantageAgora For Insurance Outsourcing, P&C Insurance, Backoffice, Insurance Backoffice