Glossary

Legal Communication Compliance

In today’s day and age, maintaining an ethical and productive workplace means having certain communication norms in place that employees are bound by. It is becoming more popular for companies to create guidelines for employees to follow to ensure that they use a particular communication style in certain situations in order to prevent misunderstandings, misuse of words or information, and potential lawsuits or other legal issues.

The Importance of Communication Compliance

The last thing that any company needs is a lawsuit – whether based on a client complaint, employee conflict, or regulatory issue. If there are clear communication compliance requirements in place, there is less room for breaches of legal or ethical communication standards. 

The guidelines can help ensure the presence of a positive work environment, establish clear and respectful communication between colleagues and customers, and minimize the chances of legal actions. The entire business can run more smoothly and efficiently when there is less room for miscommunication and misunderstandings and more focus on transparency and accountability. 

What is Included in Communication Compliance Guidelines 

The specific elements included in a company’s legal communication compliance guidelines will depend on the industry as well as the company’s specific culture. In general, communication compliance policies will include guidelines for how to communicate using different channels internally like MS Teams or Slack as well as how to communicate externally. 

These guidelines are also likely to include confidentiality measures and how to protect the privacy of clients as well as the company’s proprietary data. Employee protection is also an important feature of communication compliance and the policies put in place should deal with ways to avoid harassment, hate speech and discrimination in the workplace. 

Firms in regulated industries such as finance and insurance and publicly-traded companies are required to comply with a number of laws related to communication. These laws are designed to ensure transparency and protect investors from harm that could come from misleading or false information. A company’s communication compliance policies must take these laws into account and include procedures that relate directly to the legal requirements.

Best Practices for Communication Compliance 

Following are best practices that companies can use when creating and implementing their communication compliance policies:

  • Context is key – it’s unlikely that one set of communication rules can apply across the board to all communications. There can (and should) be different requirements based on the context. For example, a more formal tone might need to be used when communicating with a client as compared to internal messages which can be more casual and informal. 
  • One source of information – communication compliance policies will need to be written in collaboration among multiple departments including legal, IT, human resources and more. Nevertheless, it is important to designate one person or department to serve as the main point of contact for employees. This way, everyone knows exactly where to turn with questions and there is no need for employees to chase after multiple people to get answers.
  • Communicate changes – there should be a process in place to automatically update and inform employees of any amendments or additions to the communication policies. 
  • Leverage technology – there are a number of technological solutions that can be used to make it easier to ensure that employees are complying with communication policies. For example, LeapXpert’s communication platform allows users to set rules and requirements based on their own policies and then receive alerts should any conditions be breached. 

For information on how you can get started with LeapXpert, contact us to book a demo.