The F-Word

Impactful communication on the outcome of 2nd line monitoring is not only a key for a successful transformation into learnings and sustainable improvements. It also helps establishing the Compliance function as a valued and trusted partner rather than pointing fingers and blaming people for mistakes and misbehaviour, at least for the more frequent, less serious deviations.

Auditors usually call the detected deviations as findings and there is often no room for discussion.

You may call it semantics, but I strongly believe that FINDING is not the word to be used when Compliance informs about the monitoring outcome. “Finding” has a negative connotation and can be perceived as an irrevocable verdict, not least because people are used to this term from audits.

The term OBSERVATION should be used instead. A monitoring “Observation” shared with the implicated person or the management sounds more neutral, facilitates the discussion about the reason for the mistake, offers the opportunity to clarify facts, and ultimately helps moving Compliance away from the perception of internal police towards a valued and trusted business partner.  

We use cookies

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.