compliance officer

What does a compliance officer do? The short answer is that your job is to make sure your coworkers follow legal and industry guidelines. However, actually fulfilling this responsibility can be quite complex. Compliance officers often have busy days that include everything from in-person meetings to hours of paperwork. Depending on the day and the situation, your job could consist of things such as:

• taking part in ongoing training: You have to be fully up to date on all relevant guidelines, so it's your job to keep up with changes in your industry. Some compliance officers take annual classes while others perform independent research.
• monitoring workplace processes: To see if everything is running smoothly, you have to pay close attention to every part of the business. You'll do things like walk around factory floors or browse through employee emails.
• conducting risk assessments: You'll use your knowledge of your workplace and industry to see which parts of your business are at-risk for breaches. This often results in complex reports you present to other management.
• training staff: To help everyone stay compliant, you'll educate them on their duties and responsibilities. This includes onboarding new employees and updating existing employees on new policies.
• handling compliance breaches: If anyone accidentally or purposefully breaks a guideline, you handle the fallout. This can include reporting them to the authorities or disciplining them at work. You also take steps to ensure the breach doesn't occur again.

Because you need such in-depth knowledge of the workplace, you visit many different parts of the company. Most compliance officers have a personal office with a desk and computer, so you do spend a lot of time sitting in a temperature-controlled area. However, you'll also need to walk to different departments to see how things are running. For many businesses, this might mean going into unheated warehouses or visiting factory floors that require protective gear. Some compliance officers even travel between branches and spend time on the road or outside.

Depending on your employer and the industry you work in, your colleagues might include human resources managers, office managers, and employee supervisors. You'll also potentially work in close proximity with people like project managers and accountants. In some industries, you work alongside a variety of specialists such as efficiency consultants, security analysts, or quality assurance specialists. Sometimes you'll work alongside engineers, doctors, financial analysts, and other industry experts.

Your work schedule will greatly depend on the industry you work in. The majority of compliance officers work a standard 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule. You'll typically go to work during the day on each weekday. This gives you plenty of time to get your administrative work done and also interact with your colleagues.

However, if your industry has other people working nights or weekends, your schedule might be a little different. Since you need to monitor and meet with other coworkers, there is a chance that you have to work at unconventional times. Some compliance officers even have a rotating schedule where they switch between monitoring different shifts.

Whatever schedule you follow, your job is typically a full-time job. Compliance officers usually work around 40 hours a week. Though rare, overtime can occur when you need to deal with a major compliance breach or finish a report before a company meeting.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that there would be plenty of new jobs for you to consider in the upcoming years. The total number of compliance officer jobs is projected to grow by 4.3% in the next decade. Roughly 15,000 new jobs will open each year. This gives you many opportunities to find a job that suits your needs.

Another exciting thing to know is that the compliance officer job has higher than average levels of upward mobility. Since this job gives you practice supervising others and allows you to learn about every aspect of your business, it has a lot of opportunities. Many compliance officers go on to be promoted to other managerial positions. Some even become leading executives at companies.

Working through Randstad offers you a range of benefits:

• being paid weekly
• flexibility
• always a contact person you can fall back on and ask for help from
• many training opportunities
• a range of jobs in your area

Want a permanent contract? But you wonder why it would be interesting for you to work with a staffing company? A temporary job as a compliance officer is often a stepping stone to an attractive permanent job. Every year, thousands of people earn a permanent contract with great employers thanks to a temporary job found through Randstad. What's more, many companies recruit their permanent employees through Randstad too!

This usually depends on the industry you want to work in. If you plan on working for a bank, you might want an accounting degree. Meanwhile, if you want to work for an architectural firm, a construction degree would be useful. If you're not sure about what industry you want to focus on, consider a more general degree like business or management.

This usually depends on your personality. Compliance officers need to be comfortable handling tense situations with a lot of responsibility. You're less likely to be stressed if you aren't a people pleaser and are a confident leader.

In most cases, you won't be turning in fellow employees to the police. Workplace compliance issues are usually regulatory problems that can be solved in-house. You'll only be reporting straight to government agencies for blatantly illegal acts like fraud.

If you want to choose an industry with a lot of options for growth, consider finance or healthcare. These industries are developing a lot of new regulations to address the consequences of technology. Therefore, there is a lot of demand for compliance who specialize in things like telehealth or cryptocurrency.

As a compliance officer, you'll be more focused on the current future of the company. Meanwhile, an auditor will examine past records to see how the company functioned in the past. Auditors often have a broader role that looks at all potential risks for the company while you focus strictly on regulatory matters.

Applying for a compliance officer job is easy: create a Randstad profile and search our compliance officer jobs for vacancies in your area. Then simply send us your CV. If you do not have a resume, no worries. Just check out our resume builder. This state-of-the-art tool will help you to create your own resume. Need help with your application? Check out all our job-hunting tips!