Remote working isn’t a foreign concept, in fact many organizations have successfully implemented remote working policies (usually after months of preparation and careful planning) and have reaped the benefits.
However the Covid-19 pandemic forced many organizations to fast track their existing (or non-existent) plans to allow remote working. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact it could result in your BSA team being better organized and more productive.
Here are 4 tips to support your BSA team to successfully work remotely.
Tip #1: Ensure the team has access to centralized data
One of the biggest challenges in managing a remote team is central access to information. If you put off going digital with documents now is a good time to move forward on this project, both for historical data and for all new accounts. Whether this is on a shared drive or a more sophisticated centralized BSA tool, having information centrally visible is incredibly important for reviews, or when making decisions on an account application or for case management.
Tip #2: Implement a mechanism whereby members of the team can record their actions.
To create a successful remote working environment and prevent things from falling through the cracks, members of the team need to be able record their actions, ensure others are looped into conversations, provide context to those who need it, and maintain detailed records for reference and audits. This can be achieved using digital comments on a document, but if you plan on using a sophisticated BSA tool make sure there is a feature to record integrated notes.
Tip #3: Get the team into a rhythm
Transparency of information and everyone’s tasks has never been more important, and being able to leverage everyone’s experience and insight is essential for collaboration. You should review teams (and sub teams) meeting rhythms to make sure that everyone’s time is being used effeciently, and to allow team members to learn from each other’s experiences. What typically works well is a daily huddle, weekly team meeting and monthly catch-ups.
Tip #4: Balance the workload to ensure the team has capacity
With more people off sick, internet connectivity challenges, family responsibilities and system issues, ensuring a workload balance is achieved is key. Consider putting in place a mini business continuity process. If you experience delays or reduced capacity it’s critical you have a triage-like process in place to apply a risk-based approach to all tasks to ensure the most important tasks are being reviewed and actioned first.
In summary, having the right tools and systems in place can ease the challenges of working remotely. Speak to us to find out how DocFox could be the ultimate solution that will not only enable your compliance team to stay on top of their workload but will also enhance and automate many of your BSA needs.
