As far as compliance is concerned, the next few months will be an interesting time for regulated industries. With an almost overnight shift to remote working in March 2020, many organisations simply didn’t have the technical capabilities or time to deploy their compliance tech stack to a remote setting.
As a result of this quick turnaround, says Simon Blackwell, marketing director of TelcoSwitch, many companies ended up adopting technology that didn’t meet internal compliance practices, or rules enforced by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the UK.
While the FCA afforded a period of leniency in this regard, their recent ruling in January which announced that financial services organisations must record all communications while working from home is a clear statement of their expectation going forward and it comes as no surprise. If we think back to the original introduction of regulations such as MiFID II, the FCA allowed some leeway in the early days, to give organisations time to become compliant. Over time, this rightly changed.
The same is true here; remote working has been in play for over a year, which is ample time for firms to assess their regulatory obligations and make whatever changes are needed.
To ensure companies do not fall foul of this stricter emphasis on enforcement, reliable mobile call recording capabilities are integral to ensuring compliance among remote workers.
Meeting compliance
Failing to adhere to compliance rules often comes down to two things: deploying solutions that aren’t technically strict enough and enable the regulated user to bypass or ignore a solution that’s been implemented; and low adoption of such technologies due to established user habits.
That last point is a key consideration for companies deploying compliance technology you have to make it easy for employees, to the point where they don’t have to do anything differently to ensure compliance. Anything you do have should just work in the background.
The reason for this is that for many, the transition to remote working was an arduous affair that took some time to adjust to. Now that most are accustomed to it, they have much more of a set routine in place. Being bombarded with alerts and messages reminding users to make sure they are fully compliant will drive them away from new software and to alternatives that don’t force them to break their routine. So how can this be achieved?
A user experience overhaul
Firms should focus on introducing technologies that strike this balance between maintaining compliance from a call recording perspective, while guaranteeing a positive user experience. What you don’t want, for example, is an employee making WhatsApp group calls outside of your telephony suite because the unified communications (UC) platform you put in place is not user-friendly.
In this case, the employee has taken the path of least resistance, but the company finds itself at risk because it hasn’t recorded that call. All of this can be avoided if you ensure the experience on mobile, desktop, and desk phone is feature-rich yet easy to interact with and doesn’t overwhelm the user.
‘Baking in’ compliance to the existing tech stack is fundamental to getting this right. For regulated companies, that means having a simple-to-use yet robust call recording solution for desk phones and mobile phones that doesn’t rely on applications, local device storage, or even data connectivity to transmit information. Implementing this will ensure the experience and ongoing adoption remain positive.
A compliant future
With more companies adopting a hybrid working policy once Covid has been controlled, remote working won’t be disappearing any time soon. This means a large proportion of calls will continue to be taken at home and away from the office.
As a result, there are no longer any excuses to fall foul of call recording regulations. Getting everything in this order in this respect might seem like a tough ask given the dispersed nature of the workforce, but with the right philosophy and technologies in place, there are ways of making it happen.
The author is Simon Blackwell, marketing director, TelcoSwitch.
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