By Rebecca Walker, 1 June 2026
I feel genuinely fortunate to spend the majority of my work time with compliance professionals. Over the years, I have come to recognise a particular kind of exhaustion. It is the kind that belongs to the person who is, effectively, the entire compliance function of an organisation. It is not just the workload, although that is real. It is the sense that you are doing work that matters enormously, in an environment that may not fully grasp what that means, without anyone nearby who speaks the same language.
If you are a one- or two-person compliance team, you already know what I am describing. You are the person who has to hold the line and explain why, draft the policy and enforce it, escalate the concern and then live alongside the people you escalated it about. You sit in meetings where your function is simultaneously expected to be invisible and indispensable. You are asked to do more with less as a matter of course, and when something goes wrong – which it inevitably does – the accountability often lands closest to you.
None of that is unique to any one industry or organisation type. It is structural. And it is worth talking about.
Give yourself credit
One of the habits that small-team compliance professionals seem to share is the tendency to measure themselves against a standard they cannot possibly meet – a fully staffed department, a mature programme, an organisation that has been investing in compliance infrastructure for years. The gap between that standard and their current reality then reads as personal failure.
It is not. A programme that exists because one person built it from nothing, maintained it under pressure, and kept refining it despite limited resources is not a deficient programme. It is an achievement. The fact that it could be more robust with more support does not negate what is already there.
This is not an argument for lowering your standards. It is an argument for applying to yourself the same fair-minded assessment you would apply to any compliance risk: look at what is actually present, account for the context, and evaluate accordingly.
The work shapes us
Will Durant, summarising Aristotle, wrote that: “We are what we repeatedly do.” The observation distils a central argument of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics: character is not a fixed condition but the product of repeated choices. The just person becomes just by doing just things. It is a useful frame for thinking about what compliance work actually does to the people who do it.
When we do work with integrity – when we make decisions based on what is right rather than what is easy, when we refuse to sign off on something we know is wrong, when we hold a standard even when no one is watching – that work changes us. Over time, the values we bring to our work become the values that define us. The care we put in does not disappear into the institution. It accumulates in us.
A carpenter who builds furniture to last – who uses good materials and does not cut corners even when they could without anyone noticing – is not just producing durable furniture. They are becoming someone who produces durable furniture – and more than that, someone for whom integrity in craft is not a policy, but a habit of mind. The work and the worker shape each other.
Compliance is no different. The professional who raises the uncomfortable finding – who documents what they observed even when they know it will not be well received, who advocates for the right outcome in a room full of people advocating for expedience – they are not just managing risk for their organisation. They are, in the course of doing that work, becoming more capable of doing it again. The work builds the judgement. The judgement makes the work more sustainable.
That is worth a lot. It is worth a lot even when the organisation does not see it. It is worth a lot even when the outcome is imperfect. One reason so many of us are deeply committed to this profession is the quality of the people within it. That quality is, in part, a reflection of who the profession attracts, but it is also about the honing that this profession has had on each of us, as we do this work – a product of our repeated choices.
Support from peers
The isolation of compliance teams is a challenge, but it can be mitigated. Professional associations, peer networks, and informal compliance communities exist in part because this problem is common. Finding others who understand the specific pressures of this work – not just to vent, but to think through hard problems with people who have context – is not a luxury. It is a professional resource, and one that is underused. If your organisation will not pay for it, make the case that it should. A compliance officer with no professional peer network is a compliance officer operating without a critical tool.
It is also worth being deliberate about what you document and why. Not primarily as a defensive measure, though documentation has that function too, but because the record of what you did, what you flagged, and how you thought through a problem is evidence of your stewardship of the programme. That record matters both to the organisation and to you.
On the question of resourcing: if you are a one- or two-person team, part of your job may be to make the case – in a thoughtful and appropriate way – for what the function actually requires. Document what you have, identify the gaps, and put your request on the record. Whether or not it is granted, you will have done what you can.
Finally: compliance officers I have spoken with who are struggling most, are not struggling because they lack competence. They are struggling because they care deeply about getting it right, amid conditions that sometimes make getting it right genuinely difficult. That is not a weakness. It is, in fact, the qualification.
Doing the right thing
The people who do this work well – diligently, honestly, with integrity – are building the kind of professional judgement and character that can only come from repeatedly choosing to do the right thing under pressure. That is not a small thing. And on the days when this work feels thankless, or isolating, or simply too much, it is worth remembering: the work is not only producing a compliance programme. It is shaping and honing you.
About the author
Rebecca Walker is a partner at Kaplan & Walker LLP, a law firm specialising in advising organisations on compliance and ethics programmes, located in Santa Monica, California.
This article has been republished with permission from Compliance and Ethics: Ideas & Answers, whose aim is to contribute to the compliance and ethics profession, to champion compliance and ethics professionals, and to help them do their difficult jobs.
International Compliance Association is the leading professional body for the global regulatory and financial crime compliance community. Find out more about ICA membership and qualifications.