Strategic pause can help prevent burnout

Taking breaks is essential to building a culture of compliance

Expecting compliance with regulations is unreasonable for a worker in a mental health crisis

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An estimated 20% of the U.S. workforce are family caregivers outside of work, meaning they provide assistance for a parent or other adult family member. As the Baby Boomer generation continues to age (and with Generation X hot on their heels), the ranks of family caregivers in the American workplace will only continue to rise....

Improper lighting can negatively affect physical and mental health

Ensuring team takes much-needed breaks can improve health for all

3 major takeaways from ‘Ethics & Compliance for Humans’

When you’re feeling wounded, resist the temptation to cut off your emotions

Letting employees take control of their own careers can make them happier, more engaged and more productive. Just be sure to build a culture of trust before you hand them the keys. “I do it myself.” This is a phrase that parents everywhere hear uttered by 2-year-olds as they start asserting independence. Every toddler knows...

A record 50 million U.S. workers quit their jobs in 2022, and the Great Resignation has prompted organizations to reassess their approach to the employee experience. As FDM Group’s Sheila Flavell explains, a research-backed practice known as psychological safety may help leaders boost retention and overall team effectiveness. Employees should feel valued by their organization...

Life is full of curveballs. We’ve surely all had the experience of heading down what you believe is a predictable and logical set of next steps only to find that the path you thought you were taking is somehow unavailable. Change is unavoidable, but we can get better at handling it. Headlines recently have been...

At the heart of any functioning culture of compliance is the concept of protecting our colleagues and the organizations we work for. This spirit is on display in abundance throughout the Hawaiian islands thanks to the concept of mālama. Recently, I took a trip to Hawaii to rejuvenate and refresh after a long haul project...

The Covid pandemic has given us all a lesson in how our physical and emotional well-being can be affected by workplace stress, and employers are increasingly building workplace well-being strategies. Author and consultant Anna Eliatamby shares her recommendations for a humanity-centered strategy discussion. Well-being strategies have become a popular organizational intervention because of Covid and...

In our hyper-connected world, it’s easy to push our human need for peace to the back-burner. But a well-being practice isn’t just about active mindfulness; it’s also about embracing stillness. It seems like 2023 began with a burst of energy. There are taxes to be filed, programs to be assessed, momentum and lift achieved. In...

For her latest Living Your Best Compliance Life column, Mary Shirley talks about how making expressions of gratitude part of a regular practice can encourage colleagues to live up to their full, ethical potential. Air New Zealand is my home country's national airline. It is known for creative and entertaining safety videos, as well as...

We know change doesn’t come easy, which is why making sweeping declarations doesn’t usually work. But where big changes often prove too challenging, bite-sized ones can have a big impact. Last column we spoke about setting themes for the year ahead rather than resolutions. While it is important to have a general guide to what...

As the calendar rolls into February, the percentage of us who have kept our New Year’s resolutions is likely pretty small. CCI’s Well-Being Editor Lisa Beth Lentini Walker explores a better way of setting resolutions — or better yet, setting intentions. Each year, people focus on setting new year’s resolutions and without fail, the vast...

One of the challenges for the mindfully ethical leader is finding ways to connect during the holiday season without violating gifts and entertainment limits or making the other person uncomfortable. How can you give this season without running afoul of ethics policies? Both at work and at home, we often give gifts to establish or...

Even when everything’s going well, work stress can often seep into office communications in negative ways. As more and more business is done remotely, it’s time to evaluate the gratitude level in your email habits. If you’ve been feeling extra-stressed lately, you’re not alone. According to a 2022 poll by the American Psychological Association (APA),...

Strong compliance programs don’t just happen. They require planning — and budgeting. Being thoughtful and proactive will help drive appropriate budgeting that supports and promotes program effectiveness, while reducing your stress both now and throughout the next fiscal year. ’Tis the season of budget management. Every year, around the time fall beverages show up at...

Few compliance programs have tasks that are spelled out in the job descriptions of every person in an organization, and even the best of programs require buy-in from everyone from the C-suite to the housekeeping staff. But as so-called “quiet quitting” continues to change the workforce, compliance and ethics managers may need to take extra...

Long before anybody had heard of Covid-19, a workplace crisis was brewing: People were becoming overworked and overstressed. The pandemic has worsened the situation, but that doesn’t mean employers can’t make things better. Ethics and compliance consultant Lisa Schor Babin explores the prevalence of anxiety in the workforce and what concrete steps firms can take...

Most of us have an inner voice running through our heads constantly, spewing upwards of 4,000 words per minute. Because they’re with us all the time, these inescapable voices can systematically undermine our mental health, even causing us to make foolish career decisions. Have you ever heard yourself talk in your head? If you have,...

As winter seems to hold out longer than it should, we are faced with the hope of springtime. But spring cleaning can feel like a real chore, both in your personal and professional life. Nonetheless, giving this process a little time and energy can benefit you in multiple ways. Here are a few things to...

Regular fare for compliance professionals includes threats of regulatory enforcement, loss of resources, businesspeople who are intent on undermining the program, investigations into challenging areas, audits, ongoing remediations and many other situations. Ensuring that we are emotionally well and aligned with our purpose is important in an era of dwindling resources. Just as we conduct...

First responders, teachers and others who regularly are exposed to cases of violent or sexual crimes generally have dedicated resources to support their mental health and well-being—and rightly so. But what about compliance, ethics, legal, HR, security, privacy, audit and risk professionals? These guardians of integrity within an organization experience the emotional impact of interacting...

Change is an unavoidable part of life for most people, and when our lives change for the better, it can be a positive experience. But when change comes unexpectedly, such as in the form of a job loss due to consolidation, we are forced to grapple with sudden shifts. Those sudden changes don’t just force...

No one has surveyed the mental health and working conditions of compliance officers for 10 years. We decided that was long enough. The findings of a survey we conducted last year, discussed below, suggest that many COs work in a high-stakes environment where their progress is hard to measure, let alone recognize.

In the decade that Corporate Compliance Insights has covered the corporate compliance and risk management profession, we've heard a common refrain: Compliance is a stressful, demanding career that routinely has compliance professionals at odds with their colleagues. But we wanted to understand more about what exactly makes compliance roles so stressful and to what extent...