The Human Element in GRC: Cultivating a Culture of Trust and Compliance

The word trust has two different yet interrelated definitions. The first definition is the one most often linked to Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) programs:

Assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something, one in which confidence is placed. 

When customers rely on GRC programs and external audit processes to gain assurance over their vendors’ security and data protection programs, they seek documentation and assurance that the controls function as intended. 

However, the second definition of trust hints at the human element:

A charge or duty imposed in faith or confidence or as a condition of some relationship, something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another. 

This definition of trust focuses more on the relationships and emotional connections underlying trust. Often, organizations forget that people sit at the core of any compliance program.

Instilling a culture of trust and compliance across the organization means transparency across the organization and providing people with the technologies that enable them to maintain continued security. 

Fostering a Culture of Trust

Corporate culture defines the shared employee values and practices that underpin an organization’s compliance program. The fundamental principles that underlie a robust corporate culture apply to building a culture fostering both types of trust. 

Alignment with Business Objectives

As with any initiative, building a culture around trust means defining how the compliance initiatives and employee activities map to business strategies. When translating these business objectives, organizations need to align:

• Assurance strategies: Identify new laws, regulations, or frameworks that allow the organization to move into new industry verticals or act as a differentiator within a competitive market. 
• Employee practices: Educate workforce members around new technologies or security practices so they understand appropriate and expected behaviors. 

Leadership as Role Models

Corporate culture starts with leadership. In the corporate world, the senior executives become the model for how all workforce members should act. Building a corporate culture that connects compliance with employee duties requires leadership teams and line of business managers to illustrate approved behaviors. These activities might look like:

• Assurance strategies: Actively documenting the controls and processes that they use to protect data. 
• Employee practices: Providing employees with the tools necessary to protect data, like using an authentication application. 

Communication and Transparency

Research notes that communication and transparency foster a positive organizational culture. Well-informed employees who feel involved in the decision-making processes are often more engaged, making them more likely to follow processes. In reality, this might look like:

• Assurance strategies: Providing access to compliance metrics that show people how security posture relates to revenue and the organization’s stability. 
• Employee practices: Mapping security practices to employee job functions and outcomes, like providing sales teams the ability to respond to prospect security questionnaires faster. 

Enhancing Employee Engagement in GRC Processes

Implementing a corporate culture is different from maintaining it. When people feel engaged in GRC processes, they are more likely to discharge their duties in ways that align with the organization's compliance objectives. Organizations need to apply employee engagement best practices to achieve these goals. 

Recognize and Reward Security Practices

Compliance is the documentation that proves controls function as intended. Organizations have long struggled with balancing security and usability. The controls that improve security often mean that users have to do more work. An organization’s security posture relies on employees taking security seriously. For example, rewarding employees for maintaining robust security practices that relate to the GRC objectives might include recognizing:

• High scores on security awareness tests.
• People reporting phishing attempts, real or simulated. 
• Security teams’ ability to mitigate risk. 
• Compliance functions’ ability to reduce the time audits take. 

Align GRC Outcomes to Employee Job Functions

Connecting tasks to people’s personal values makes them feel more invested in the project. Often, compliance feels like a mundane task disconnected from people’s everyday duties. 

Increasingly, compliance is a business enabler, so mapping the organization’s GRC outcomes to job functions helps employees feel more engaged in the processes. For example, when sales teams can close deals faster because they have access to the compliance information that prospects need, they are more likely to understand GRC’s value to their own goals. 

Empower By Providing Autonomy

GRC is a cross-functional initiative. While collaboration is critical, it is not always necessary. In some cases, people need compliance information to do their job. By giving people access to the compliance information they need, organizations empower their employees. 

For example, the legal department may need to compare contract language against the organization’s security control terminology. With access to this information, they have the autonomy to complete their job duties without relying on others who may have different priorities. 

Combining Technology with Leadership for Holistic Risk Management

In his conclusion, Backer states, “trust platforms then permit the application of multiple regulatory or standard systems against which governance behaviors and accountability measures can be evaluated.” In an era where organizations use GRC as a quantification that earns customer trust, combining technology with leadership enables the organization to create a holistic culture that leverages third-party assurance to build confidence in relationships. 

Tailor Risk Scoring to Leadership Defined Business Objectives

All GRC initiatives must start from the foundation of the organization’s strategic business and revenue goals. Organizations must adopt customizable trust platforms that all them to tailor risk scoring, frameworks, and control to business outcomes, like:

• Entering new markets: Customizing risk registers that reflect industry-specific threats. 
• Customer expectations: Artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate security questionnaire responses. 
• Internal risk tolerance: Additional controls beyond those outlined in security and data protection compliance frameworks. 

Quantify Business Impact to Drive Employee Actions

Security assurance can be a key market differentiator. By offering a trust platform to potential buyers, organizations build customer trust. Simultaneously, when they can link deal closure metrics to compliance initiatives, they show employees how data protection practices impact their jobs. More deals means more revenue. More revenue means stability, impacting employees' income. When security and compliance become personal, employees take the practices more seriously. 

Communicate Security Maturity to Employees

By being transparent with employees, they better understand the role they play in the larger security and compliance picture. Transforming security and compliance into a communication tool enables organizations to prove the value of employee security practices. Publicly sharing the organization’s ongoing security improvements enables employees to understand the role they play in protecting data and ensuring customer trust. 

How Drata’s Trust Management Platform Helps Cultivate a Culture of Trust and Compliance

Drata’s GRC platform provides the customization and automation that organizations need to achieve their full compliance potential. Our platform offers:

• Pre-mapped risk library and custom risk scoring capabilities so organizations can streamline risk assessments while still defining thresholds that meet their specific needs.
• Treatment plans based on risks’ impact and likelihood to help accelerate audit readiness. 
• A Trust Center that organizations can use to expedite customer vendor reviews by showing them pertinent security information, either on an as-needed basis or publicly. 
• AI-based security questionnaire assistance to accelerate deals, save time, and unify review processes. 

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