Simon Kent, Head of Content, reports on how taking care of compliance doesn’t need to just be a policing role.
As the need for compliance becomes more urgent there are suggestions that this could be an opportunity for HR professionals to take a firm step forward to assuming a more strategic role. Indeed, as the Employment Rights Act begins to impact on the workplace, not taking the initiative in this way could result in the function becoming further seen as purely administrative, associated with the application of rules and regulations and therefore simply contributing to the daily grind of running and managing a business.
So what does the way forward look like? According to two academics from the sector it’s a question of being proactive rather than reactive.
“HR professionals need to move from reactive compliance to anticipatory capability,” says the Professor of Responsible Leadership, Trinity Business School, Professor Na Fu. She calls on HR to work closely with legal and finance functions in order to translate regulation into organisational priorities. As part of this HR should always be proactively considering and interpreting policy developments, identifying how these can be implemented to the good of their organisation.
She gives the example of the EU Corporate Social Responsibility Directive. Rather than responding to this regulation as a reporting exercise, she says HR has an opportunity to use this requirement to position workforce, skills, and talent development within the context of sustainability and long-term value creation. “This only happens if HR actively engages, asks the right questions, and collaborates across functions,” she notes.
A role for technology
Technology and particularly AI can play an important role here. Used responsibly, the technology can help HR interpret complex regulatory landscapes more quickly, identify gaps, and support more consistent, evidence-based decisions. It can even enable better integration across functions, moving the organisation away from the silo mentality that often makes compliance more difficult to implement and more disruptive for the business in general.
For Professor Na Fu compliance is not inherently bureaucratic. “The problem is how organisations approach it,” she says. With the right mindset, skills, and tools, compliance can shift from a reactive obligation to a forward-looking capability that strengthens organisational effectiveness and strategic alignment.
Ivona Hideg, Professor of Organisation Studies at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford believes that the real impact of regulations on business depends on how compliance is communicated and experienced within the organisation. “When it is positioned as a set of top-down rules, it tends to reinforce a sense of bureaucracy,” she explains. In Hideg’s view if compliance is framed as a shared framework – clearly explained, transparently applied, collectively owned – it can form the foundation for stronger trust, greater inclusion, and more effective day-to-day collaboration for businesses.
When communication reflects this and acknowledges real experiences, trade offs and the practical impact on individuals, it humanises compliance.”
Communication is particularly important as it needs to clearly address the ‘why’ of compliance – concentrating only on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of policies will not lead to genuine understanding among employees and consequently a lack on buy in. “While regulations often introduce complexity, organisations that take the time to explain why policies exist, what risks they mitigate and whose wellbeing they protect, demonstrate respect for employees as people rather than simply as subjects of rules,” she says.
To do this effectively HR needs to consciously centre on people, rather than policies. Meanwhile the policies themselves should be seen to support fair and consistent treatment rather than policing behaviour. “When communication reflects this and acknowledges real experiences, trade offs and the practical impact on individuals, it humanises compliance,” says Hideg. “In doing so, it shifts compliance from a technical requirement to something more meaningful and relatable, strengthening both engagement and trust.”
People are more likely to accept outcomes, even difficult ones, when they understand the reasoning and feel that processes are applied with care and fairness.”
Transparency has a key role to play here – there needs to be honesty and trust in compliance – that these rules and regulations exist for a clear reason rather than just for the sake of it. Clear and consistent explanations of decisions, especially in areas like pay, progression or grievances, reduce perceptions of arbitrariness. “This openness is essential to trust,” says Hideg. “People are more likely to accept outcomes, even difficult ones, when they understand the reasoning and feel that processes are applied with care and fairness.”
While compliance may seem to be something that HR needs to develop and then deliver to employees, Hideg advocates involving employees in the process. This could mean seeking input when designing policies, inviting feedback on how they operate in practice, and enabling managers to have thoughtful and human conversations around the issue. On the one hand this brings compliance closer to the people on whom it impacts, but it also creates space and opportunity to identify where policies may unintentionally disadvantage certain groups. In this way, the work of enacting compliance can actually create a more inclusive organisation.
“Growing regulation need not signal bureaucracy,” asserts Hideg. “When organisations centre people, communicate with empathy, and treat compliance as a collective responsibility, it becomes less about control and more about care, creating an infrastructure for fairness, trust and a more inclusive workplace.”
Compliance should not therefore come with a heart drop every time it is mentioned, but be treated as an opportunity to reinforce positive messages around the organisation. For HR it is a chance to demonstrate care for employees and to involve them in the creation of the workplace, the management of work and responsibility across all aspects of the organisation. In this way it become a strategic tool for HR in ensuring the workforce and workplace are both fit for the future – and that in turn is something with which all company leaders should want to engage.
