MANAGING OUTSOURCED REPORTING SERVICES EFFECTIVELY

electric fences in the past and sadly some organisations also consider this to be the case with
reporting services.
My philosophy of risk management is simply that one needs the skills of a competent risk
management professional to integrate all the appropriate solutions available in the right
combination to ensure that the most effective outcome is achieved for each specific
organisation. This is rather like the analogy that a pile of building materials only become a
home once an architect and skilled tradesmen have put the components together in the most
optimum manner. A group of musicians, no matter how skilful each may be, only become an
orchestra and produce sublime music once they unite under the baton of a conductor to
reveal the mysteries of a composers score.
The obvious conclusion is that a reporting service, while being an excellent (and almost
indispensable) component of a well-structured risk management strategy, is never going to
really live up to its potential unless it is skilfully integrated with other complementary
solutions.
Taking it a step further, and no matter what level of service is provided by the ORS, it is
never “going to work” in an ethical desert! I have recently had two subscribers who, for one
reason or another introduced an ORS and after a year cancelled their subscription because
they didn’t achieve the results that they expected.
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Whereas even 15 years ago most risk management effort and resources were of a reactive
nature (like investigations), the trend lately has been to introduce proactive measures to
identify unlawful and inappropriate behaviour in the workplace. ORSs fall firmly into that
category.
For years in risk management we have talked about the, entirely unempirical, 10:80:10 rule.
This rule states that 10% of your employees will always behave ethically no matter what the
circumstances, 10% will always look for opportunities to break the rules and take short-cuts
and cut corners and the 80% majority will move between the two ends of the spectrum
depending on the ethos of the particular organisation.
Clearly the objective is to move as many employees as possible to the “good guy” end of the
spectrum and either get rid of or transform the bad apples. That said, we are still (quite
rightly) spending a lot of effort on keeping the “dodgy” 10% out of the organisation by
introducing effective pre-employment processes and in identifying, apprehending and
disciplining those that are already in the organisation but I don’t believe that we are doing
enough to build a team of “good guys” and to celebrate their ethical behaviour.
From the time when ORSs were introduced they were accommodated firmly in the
compliance space. It was all about policies, procedures, rules and instructions. In most
organisations the internal audit and/or forensic manager was responsible for managing the
service. The original communication themes were all about catching the crooks.
Version 2015-01 © BE HEARD 2015