Essential Compliance Tips For Growing Your Business

by Startacus Admin

Startup or small business owner? Here's an overview of why compliance matters and how you can start implementing it into your business model.

For a small business to succeed and survive past the dreaded five-year mark, business owners must do everything they can to ensure each piece works optimally. 

If one part is underperforming, it can bring the whole business down. Like an otherwise well-oiled machine with one rusted component, if one aspect of your business is not working well, it can harm the whole—costing money and time and limiting growth.

That’s why small business owners need to do all they can to keep the components of their business in the best possible shape. One of small business owners' tasks is ensuring their business operations are functioning within the bounds of the law and following best practices in their respective fields.

In other words, small business owners need to keep up with compliance. This article will explore why compliance matters and how you can start implementing compliance into your business model.

Why Being Compliant Is In Your Business’s Best Interest

The potential of facing serious litigation, fines, and legal fees is enough to keep any business owner compliant with their industry’s standards and practices. However, other secondary reasons compel business owners to strive for and excel at compliance.

Improve Productivity… And Profitability As A Result

Compliance creates strong business standards that keep your employees aware of the best practices. This focus on not merely meeting standards, but exceeding them, can influence all levels of company culture. 

When a business shows that they prioritize what is right and not easiest, it gives employees a sense of security that their employer will do right by them. Additionally, when goals and expectations are clearly defined, employees have a clear framework for what is considered excellent work.

When a business acts responsibly, its employees are encouraged to act responsibly. It’s why nurturing a workplace environment that fosters compliance at all levels—including how employees and management treat each other—will help your business succeed.

Compliance Helps With Your Business’s Public Image

When a company is in the news for failing to meet legal requirements or industry standards, it damages its reputation among the public and its business relationships. This condemnation makes sense on a visceral level—would you eat at a restaurant constantly in the news for failing to meet health and safety standards? 

Most likely not.

When a business is continuously skirting regulations and finding clever ways to bypass laws and compliance standards, it is the functional equivalent of a restaurant finding unique and clever ways to “pass” a health inspection—and its dubious efforts don’t go unnoticed. 

It looks questionable at best and scandalous at worst. Most businesses rely on their relationships with customers or other companies to see continued success.

When a company is not compliant, it compromises trust—and customer trust is essential for every business to succeed.

Bring Your Business Beyond Compliance

Here are several ways to ensure your business won’t face compliance issues. The following items are intentionally broad so as to apply to as many different types of businesses as possible.

Invest In Top-Notch Data Storage and Security

Data breaches are, unfortunately, a common occurrence in 2022. Use only the best and most-compliant software and hardware when searching for tech solutions for your business. When selecting a system for managing essential documents, ensure it is compliant and secure.

Also, encourage your employees to practice rigorous security standards when dealing with critical or sensitive business documents. It might be slightly more of a hassle to require a password to open a certain document, but the slight inconvenience is well worth the added security.

Outsource To Proven, Third-Party Companies When Dealing With Out-Of-Scope Activities

If a department such as HR, IT, or accounting is out of your small business’s scope (or ability to manage effectively), consider outsourcing that operation to a trusted, compliant third-party company. 

Rather than DIY it and risk unknowingly breaking the law or an industry standard, delegate that function to a business whose job is to do that particular task. If you are not an accounting expert, don’t tackle accounting on your own.

Centralize Employee Communication

You should centralize all of your employees’ professional and business-related communications so that you can keep track of contacts and have a solid, irrefutable record. If something were to happen and you lost track of vital communication records, or those records were to spread across several platforms, it could mean losing a lawsuit. 

Don’t Hire A One-Size-Fits-All Attorney

Would you trust a workers’ comp attorney to handle the legal contract for your new business acquisition? Would you trust a medical malpractice attorney to manage your business’s insurance problems? 

You may have an attorney you enjoy working with, but hiring them for something well outside their wheelhouse can ruin your business. Make sure you hire the right attorney for the particular job.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Veronica Davis is a writer, blogger, and legal assistant operating out of the greater Philadelphia area. She writes for Mount Holly workers’ compensation attorney Stan Gregory.

 

 

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Published on: 28th July 2022