Everyone will agree that the need to foster a culture of compliance is essential in every business. It strengthens your brand reputation; improves employee and management relations; enhances productivity; and helps your business avoid penalties. It is in fact, a way to better manage crisis and difficulties. Therefore, a culture of compliance is more than just doing what needs to be done. It is a culture that has to be introduced to your car wash business.

Here Are the Steps to Foster a Culture of Compliance Among Your Car Wash Employees

1. Understand Your Car Wash Business’ State

Before you start to foster a culture of compliance among your car wash employees, you have to know and understand your business’ current state. What are your current business compliance obligations? Moreover, it is critical that you have a firm grasp of your car wash business’ current culture and its existing compliance issues. Learn the controls placed for every issue. List down supporting technologies used. Lastly, know the persons or departments responsible for every situation.

2. Get  Management on Board

Once you understand your compliance issues and what needs to be done, present this to middle management and of course to senior management. Explain to them why it is important to foster a culture of compliance and get their buy-in. They must be able to actively support and cultivate a culture of compliance for your efforts to be effective.  It would also make it easier for you if management understands what you are trying to do and why they should be on board.  If management is on board and is taking it seriously, their teams are more likely to follow suit.

3. To Foster a Culture of Compliance – Educate and Train Your Car Wash Employees

Make sure that you educate your car wash employees on the objectives and relevant policies/procedures of the company. All your car wash employees should be trained on the code of conduct and basic components of your compliance program. Do not forget to track, document, and follow up on the training schedules.  These training should take place regularly with policy review and employee assessment. It may not come cheap, but these training are worthy of your investments. According to Navex Global, good compliance training saved Morgan Stanley in 2010 when an employee violated a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The DOJ investigation found out that the company provided sufficient training to their employees regarding this matter. This proved that the company has done its part in effectively training its employees. Thus, it is crucial to have these training sessions properly documented too.

4. Put Effective Systems in Place

The next step to foster a culture of compliance is to put systems in place for planning, reporting and budgeting to reinforce compliant behaviors. Make sure that all systems are in place. Strategies should be aligned with and reinforces your strategy to foster a culture of compliance.  Make use of technology. Spreadsheets have their limitations. Compliance technology solutions can greatly make it easier for you to create compliance program that is consistent and repeatable. Choose systems that will allow various departments in your company to function consistently and more cohesively. Having an effective system in place, will also help you to track progress easier and more conveniently.

5. Offer Incentives and Ensure Discipline With Your Car Wash Employees

You should consistently enforce your compliance program through incentives and disciplinary actions across all levels of the organization. Incorporate ethical behavior in your performance reviews. Your car wash employees are much more likely to adhere to policies and procedures if compliance is tied to compensation. At the same time, do not turn the other cheek on those who make compliance mistakes. Mistakes that occur may occur again. Analyse incidents and determine if they deserve a disciplinary action. You should be willing to discipline car wash employees who violate company policy. This will give your employees more reason to comply. Take note, however, that you should be wary of frequent non-compliance issues. This may indicate that a policy needs to be revised.

6. Assess the Effectiveness of Your Compliance Program to See the Effect of Fostering the Culture of Compliance

The Federal Sentencing Guidelines require that effectiveness of compliance programs should be periodically reviewed and assessed. Review your objectives in implementing a compliance program and examine the practices you have in your car wash business that support the program. Determine what the challenges are to the implementation of an effective compliance program. Then, develop an action plan based on your objectives and implement additional preventive, detective, or corrective controls necessary to adjust actual results to expected outcomes. To sum up, make sure that changes are properly documented and communicated to all your car wash employees.

Conclusion

When considering a franchise business, choose a brand that exerts effort to foster a culture of compliance. Choose DetailXperts. It has always emphasized  a culture of compliance in the company and among franchisees.  Take advantage of learning all of these as part of your franchisor’s training when you say yes to become a franchisee.

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