Board directors of leading firms ‘struggling to recruit compliance staff’
New research from Ocorian, a market leader in regulation and compliance services for funds, corporates, capital markets and private clients, shows a growing recruitment crisis is hitting major companies as they struggle to find compliance and legal staff.
Ocorian’s international study among board directors at leading firms with an annual turnover of $250 million, found nearly three out of four (73%) say their organisation finds it difficult to recruit the right people in their compliance and legal department.
They do not foresee the situation easing either – around 75% predict it will become harder to find the experienced and expert people they need with 40% forecasting recruitment will become much harder.
The board directors questioned say the increasing complexity of the regulatory issues their company faces around the world is the biggest roadblock to recruitment. However the rapidly increasing salaries commanded by compliance and legal professionals was ranked the second biggest issue out of four.
Growing competition for compliance and regulatory professionals was rated as the third biggest cause of recruitment issues while the increasingly global and international nature of the regulatory issues alternative fund managers face was cited as the fourth biggest issue.
More than half (51%) of board directors questioned said their compliance department was under-resourced with 18% admitting it was very under-resourced. Around 43% believe they have the right level of resources in their compliance department while 6% claim to be over-resourced.
The study highlighted the importance of regulation for the business and for individual board members with nearly two out of three (63%) of board directors questioned saying executive directors at their company are held very accountable for their actions.
Around 33% said executive directors are held relatively accountable while just 2% said executive directors were not held accountable for their or the organisation’s actions. Around 2% did not know about the issue.
Aron Brown, head of regulatory & compliance at Ocorian said: “Board directors at leading firms are facing issues on a wide range of fronts as they struggle to recruit the expert and experience compliance and regulatory staff their businesses need.
“On the one hand they need to address issues with increasing regulatory complexity while also addressing issues with growing competition for compliance staff driving salaries and the cost to them higher.”
“We increasingly seeing growing demand from existing and new clients for support on regulatory and compliance issues as the growing complexity of their businesses increases their costs. That is driving more outsourcing to third parties like us as firms recognise the need to ensure they are compliant. “
Assisting with a broad range of compliance services Ocorian’s subsidiary compliance consultancy service, Newgate Compliance, delivers pragmatic and flexible solutions to help clients meet often complex, evolving and increasing regulatory obligations. The team led by industry experts and ex regulators helps clients with the submission of regulatory authorisation applications, provision of Money Laundering Reporting Officers (MLROs), the implementation of compliance frameworks and governance structures, as well as regulatory and compliance training for employees.