As a compliance professional, you’ve probably been told that you should “build a culture of compliance.”
The culture part is easy enough to understand. In basic terms, that’s just the “personality” of your company. But what does it mean to build a culture of compliance? Isn’t compliance your job?
While yes, keeping your institution compliant is technically your job, that doesn’t mean you should be doing it alone. In fact, building a culture of compliance makes your job easier, protects the company, supports your compliance program, and brings your team together.
And while you may understand the definition of “culture,” that doesn’t mean creating one is easy, whether you’re doing it from scratch or just working compliance into a pre-existing one.
So here’s why it’s important to build a culture of compliance throughout your bank or credit union and how to do so effectively.
Why Building a Culture of Compliance Matters
Regulatory compliance is more than just “checking a box.” If you want to turn that into an institution-wide culture, you need to understand how it benefits your entire team.
Having a culture of compliance:
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Reduces risk before your institution gets into trouble
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Makes regulatory exams less stressful (CRA, Fair Lending, HMDA, etc.)
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Distributes the workload so compliance isn’t reliant on one person or team
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Strengthens your reputation in the community
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Guides leaders and teams in making decisions
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Helps compliance become proactive, not reactive
A true culture of compliance exists when employees don't view compliance as someone else's responsibility. Instead, they naturally consider compliance implications when making decisions, raising concerns, launching initiatives, or serving customers.
As you can see, there are many benefits to creating a culture of compliance. Compliance touches every department and role at the institution, even if it isn’t obvious. So how can you build that culture? Let’s get into it.
How to Build a Culture of Compliance
Get Leadership on Board
In almost every company, culture begins with leadership. Their values, beliefs, behavior, and attitudes affect your company’s “personality.”
Without leadership’s support, creating a culture of compliance throughout the institution will die before it can even begin.
How you get leadership on board depends on your specific institution and existing culture. Make sure to highlight how a strong compliance culture supports your institution's broader compliance program and risk management goals. Once leadership understands what you’re trying to accomplish and gives its blessing, it’s time to bring that same dedication to the rest of the team.
Make Compliance Visible Across the Organization
It’s pretty difficult to build a culture around something employees never see. Instead of treating compliance tasks as an afterthought, make them front and center in every workflow and process.
For example, the next time your bank’s marketing team has a great idea, they should already be thinking about how to keep the campaign compliant, not dreading sending the final sign-off to you. When compliance is integrated into the entire creative process, departments will be able to collaborate more effectively and appreciate one another’s efforts.
Talk About Compliance Early (and Often)
From someone’s very first day as an employee, they should know that your company is serious about compliance. While they can’t be expected to know everything, they should at least know which regulations your institution is required to comply with, how their role affects the company’s compliance, and how they can support your efforts.
And their training shouldn’t stop there. Compliance is one of those things that can easily fall to the bottom of a to-do list if someone isn’t reminded of it often. And that applies to everyone on your team, not just the newest members.
You should provide regular compliance training to the entire team. Make sure everyone is familiar with applicable regulations and your company’s compliance approval process. Give good and bad examples of past compliance wins and mistakes (although avoid naming anyone when it comes to mistakes, of course). The more often your team members hear about compliance and see it in action, the more likely they are to be proactive and help your institution stay compliant without relying on your team to catch mistakes.
Encourage Employees to Speak Up
Employees need to know they can ask questions, raise concerns, and report potential issues without fear of embarrassment or retaliation. If employees stay silent because they're afraid of making a mistake or looking uninformed, small compliance issues can become much larger problems. And honestly, your institution’s culture is the opposite of what we’re going for…
Make it clear that asking questions is encouraged. In many cases, preventing a compliance issue starts with an employee feeling comfortable enough to say, "I'm not sure this is right."
Create Compliance Champions Across Departments
One of the fastest ways to strengthen your culture of compliance is to stop treating compliance as a department and start treating it as a shared responsibility.
That doesn’t mean everyone becomes a compliance expert overnight. Instead, identify employees in each department who can serve as compliance champions. These individuals act as the bridge between their departments and the compliance team.
When selecting compliance champions, look for employees who:
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Are respected by their peers
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Enjoy helping others
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Have strong attention to detail
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Are passionate about protecting the institution
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Communicate effectively across teams
Provide these champions with additional training, involve them in compliance discussions, and encourage them to bring concerns or ideas back to your team. Before long, you'll have a network of compliance advocates helping reinforce your culture every day.
Celebrate Compliance Wins
It’s easy to notice when your institution has a compliance-related error. Someone is bound to call it out—whether that’s regulators, community members, or your leadership team. But it’s not always easy to see when your institution does compliance right. And that makes it easy for your team to feel disheartened or like they aren’t doing enough to support your institution.
So when an exam goes smoothly, or a department catches and corrects an issue before it becomes a problem, take time to acknowledge it. By celebrating compliance wins, you reinforce the idea that compliance isn't just about avoiding penalties. It's about protecting consumers, strengthening the institution, and supporting long-term regulatory compliance.
You don't need to throw a parade every time someone follows a procedure correctly. But a quick mention in a staff meeting, an internal newsletter feature, or a message from leadership can go a long way.
Recognize Employees Who Get It Right
Celebrating wins also means recognizing the specific employees who helped your team get there. A little recognition goes a long way, and employees who haven't yet made a big impact will want to get in on the action.
When employees proactively identify concerns, complete training promptly, or help improve compliance processes, make sure their efforts don't go unnoticed.
Recognition can be as simple as:
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A shout-out during a team meeting
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A feature in an internal newsletter
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A small award or incentive
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A personal thank-you from leadership
You aren’t trying to create competition here. You want to show employees that compliance matters and that the institution values those who help protect it.
Over time, this recognition will help shift compliance from something employees "have to do" into something they take pride in supporting. And that’s how you build a culture.
Use Technology and Data to Reinforce Your Culture
Even the strongest culture needs systems that support it.
When compliance processes rely on spreadsheets, email threads, and memory, it's easy for things to fall through the cracks. Technology helps make compliance visible, consistent, and manageable across the organization.
The right tools can help your institution:
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Centralize compliance-related activities and documentation
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Monitor community development and CRA activities
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Create reports for audits and exams
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Increase accountability across departments
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Provide leadership with real-time visibility into compliance efforts
Data can be a powerful motivator. Sharing metrics, progress updates, and compliance achievements helps employees see the direct impact of their efforts. Just as many institutions share community impact data to strengthen engagement and accountability, compliance metrics can help reinforce expectations and demonstrate progress throughout the organization.
How Kadince Helps You Build a Culture of Compliance
Building a culture of compliance may sound challenging, but when you have proper systems and workflows in place, that culture becomes the default, not something you hope to achieve someday.
Kadince software makes it easy to track, manage, and share your institution’s compliance-related data and tasks. Whether you're managing bank compliance initiatives, credit union compliance requirements, CRA activities, marketing compliance approvals, consumer complaints, HMDA data, or other compliance-related efforts, Kadince makes it easier for compliance teams to stay informed.
With Kadince, you can:
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Improve collaboration between departments
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Encourage accountability through standardized workflows
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Create reports for management and regulatory exams
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Provide leadership with visibility into institution-wide efforts
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Take your institution’s compliance efforts from one department to the entire institution
Building a culture of compliance doesn't happen overnight. It requires consistent leadership, employee engagement, ongoing education, and the right systems to support your efforts. At the end of the day, the strongest culture of compliance isn't one where employees wonder whether what they’re doing makes a difference. It's one where everyone understands their role, works together to do things right, and takes ownership of protecting the institution and the communities it serves.
When that happens, regulatory compliance stops feeling like a burden and starts becoming part of who you are as an organization.
To see how Kadince can help your institution build a culture of compliance, schedule a personalized demo.
None of Kadince, Inc., its affiliates, or its respective employees, directors, officers, and agents (collectively, “Kadince”) are responsible or liable for any content or information incorporated herein. Read full disclosure.
