The recent spate of high-profile crackdowns on communication violations has given managements and compliance teams a much-needed reality check.
Regulators from industries, especially finance, found a shocking amount of disregard for mandates requiring the supervision and retention of employee communication. Given that penalties no longer are mere slaps on the wrist, with cases, such as the WhatsApp fines causing billions of dollars in losses to companies, compliance officers are scrambling to shore up their communication monitoring operations.
While the issue of everyone from top-level executives to new joiners and remote employees having business conversations through non-approved channels is a pressing matter, the worst possible thing a business can do is implement stop-gap measures as a knee-jerk reaction just to stave off the regulators temporarily.
The need of the hour is a comprehensive compliance program that covers all aspects of employee communication and has its performance evaluated constantly using the appropriate metrics.
Top tracking priorities for communication compliance
When major players in the industry are faced with a barrage of lawsuits, regulator action, and reputational damage, companies intuitively begin putting in place systems to monitor text messages and record voice calls.
However, these initiatives are ineffective unless there is a concerted effort to measure and improve various crucial aspects of the compliance regimen.
Crucially, companies need to keep track of:
Devices and applications used for employee communication
There have been multiple instances of employees evading regulatory scrutiny using end-to-end encrypted devices/ apps. iPhone mobile messaging compliance issues, and similar challenges, including the inability to perform regulator-mandated WhatsApp call recording, with employees’ devices means the IT teams need to accurately track the number of these devices and the instant messengers used by employees, so the messages can be captured by a network archiver.
Instances of communication policy violations across channels
Having accurate reporting of employee violations of your communication compliance policy, such as the use of unapproved apps, offensive language, the transfer of sensitive information regarding clients or the company, etc., can go a long way in unearthing important patterns relating to consistently non-compliant employees and teams. The information can be obtained through the use of an archiving solution, which can auto-flag potentially problematic keywords/ phrases in employee conversations.
Mean response time to tackle communication policy violations
There is an undeniable need to bring down the time it takes for the compliance team, IT department, HR, and even the management to react to a violation by employees. If responses take an indefinite amount of time, the violator could have the opportunity to delete or tamper with the messages, leaving the company blindsided in the case of regulator action. Making matters worse, if the company can’t produce the communication in question and prove they were on top of the situation from the time it was reported, the company could be implicated in the mess.
Average time for conducting discovery
Crucially, compliance teams need to ensure that they can quickly access specific conversation records based on keywords, the sender/ receiver, or the date. The metric is especially crucial because companies that can’t produce key evidence for e-discovery or investigations could end up with major fines or even suspensions in case they are operating in the investment advisory industry and are regulated by FINRA, SEC, etc.
The frequency of the deletion of irrelevant communication data
To ensure that companies aren’t accumulating volumes of needless communication data past the retention period recommended by regulators, compliance teams need to perform regular audits to remove outdated records as long as there aren’t any pending legal disputes. Including the data that the regulator no longer needs to be archived in your compliance readiness analysis can end up making the process harder or skew the information.
Knowledge gaps
When it comes to facing investigations from regulators, ignorance of their communication monitoring and recordkeeping mandates can’t be used as an excuse. Consequently, compliance teams have to be aware of how well their employees, including the management, know their industry regulations through frequent audits and tracking their completion of regulator/ company-recommended certifications.
To accurately assess how well the employees are faring in the knowledge transfer sessions on communication compliance, be on the lookout for information on the completion rate of the program, dropout rate, and assessment results.
It is worth mentioning that since the issue of unapproved channels and devices for communication is especially widespread among hybrid/ remote employees, special care must be taken to know how well they know their responsibilities.
Customer satisfaction reports
Regulated companies need to keep close tabs on the communication that goes on with the clients and prospects. While the implementation of an archiver ensures that the communication is recorded, it is also necessary to monitor the sentiment of customer interactions, especially since regulators, including FINRA, have made it clear even the smallest misunderstandings, like an employee sharing an ambiguous emoji could result in a customer complaint.
Where Artificial Intelligence figures in the communication compliance metrics discussion
Since the inception of generative AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, the risk of customer information or company secrets being fed to these models by employees has been quite evident. As a result, firms operating in regulated industries may soon need to record employee interactions with these chatbots to measure the level of compliance and identify threats instantaneously.
AI hasn’t just presented regulated entities with challenges; it has also opened up the possibility of being deployed with compliance tools to quickly identify instances of employee violations of communication policy. Notably, the AI models are capable of producing real-time reports of employees sharing classified information, providing dubious information to clients, instances of harassment of coworkers, etc., making it a potent tool for regulating enterprise messaging services.
Conclusion
Keeping close track of the performance metrics of your communication compliance program will go a long way in satisfying regulatory requirements and providing ammunition to compliance teams and legal departments in case of investigations. Going beyond what the regulators want, company management can leverage the insights they get from analyzing employee communication to make better decisions across the board. But to be able to measure the performance of your communication compliance program, you need to capture employee conversations automatically across all platforms in real-time and safeguard them in a tamper-proof manner, which is where an archiver, like TeleMessage, comes into the picture.
With TeleMessage, regulated companies can record employee communication over the network irrespective of the device used so you can glean crucial information that can safeguard you from penalties and suspensions. To get started with the archiver, contact us for a demo.
About TeleMessage
TeleMessage captures and retains mobile content, including mobile SMS messages, voice calls WhatsApp, and WeChat conversations from corporate or BYOD mobile phones to ensure compliance with various data protection regulations. The messages are securely and reliably retained within TeleMessage servers or forwarded to your choice of archiving data storage vendor.
Our mobile archiving products securely record content from mobile carriers and mobile devices for various ownership models (BYOD, CYOD, and employer-issued). With our multiple archiving solutions, you can always find the right tools or blend for your requirements:
