Conflicts of Interest
The workplace is one of the most common places where conflicts of interest can occur. Organizations need tools to identify, prioritize, mitigate, and provide channels for employees to disclose potential conflicts of interest.
Addressing conflicts of interest and disclosure management
Increased complexity and lack of transparency has compelled many organisations to realize the need to track and update conflicts of interest (COI). Creating a culture of ethics and trust starts from the tone that you set at the top. When it comes to disclosure management that means being open with your employees and constituents that you do not want to control their relationships but you do need to know about their existing relationships to reduce the risk due to potential conflicts.
If your organisation does not have a straightforward place for those disclosures to be made, they can easily be postponed or forgotten altogether, putting your organisation at greater risk. Organisations need a clean way to communicate what those conflicts of interest may be, and provide an easy, unthreatening way for those disclosures to be made.
What you need
COI Policy
Policies that clearly define the types of relationships that should be disclosed.
Process
A non-intimidating process that encourages open and honest disclosures.
Training
Interactive training that puts those policies into context, clearly explaining why COI matters.
Reporting
A way to track COI investigations and resolutions, with easy reporting.
Tracking
A system to track communication between the disclosing party and compliance professional.
Insight
Insight into your third parties to show hidden engagements with politically exposed peoples, government officials and competitors.
Steps you can take to manage and monitor conflicts of interest
Step 1
Identify all the regulations and contracts that require COI disclosure.
Step 2
Clearly train employees on what constitutes a conflict of interest, and create a safe environment to talk about them.
Step 3
Utilise an automated policy management solution to distribute disclosures to all your employees, tracking who has read and completed their disclosure questionnaire in a central database.
Step 4
Track COI investigations and resolutions and run reports with an integration between your policy management software and your incident management system.