Insight

Breaking barriers: Advancing diversity and inclusion in the compliance world

Written by International Compliance Association on Thursday January 21, 2021

As a global organisation, we understand that diversity and inclusion is different around the world - the challenges faced by different groups vary significantly.

With this in mind, in September 2020 we surveyed 300 members in the compliance field to determine how compliance is advancing diversity and inclusion efforts and what challenges still exist to implementing an inclusive D&I programme.

Compliance practitioners from various industries discussed the results from ‘Diversity and Inclusion in the Compliance World’ and offered a glimpse into D&I practices and policies within their own companies. They also examined key takeaways, such as:

38% of respondents said they’d experienced some kind of discrimination in the workplace, which the experts said was high but not surprising due to such factors as ‘unconscious bias’ and issues with quantifying D&I.
36% of respondents said compliance regulations do not do enough to address D&I, and 48% said more could be done – a responsibility, noted the experts, of the HR function and compliance to hold each other accountable.
Exactly half of those polled said their company is fully committed to D&I… but 37% said more should be done and 13% said D&I hasn’t been adequately addressed at all. Based on their own experiences, the compliance professionals offered tips on enhancing those efforts.

View the white paper here for more insights and full survey results.