Joe Murphy (jemurphy5730@gmail.com) is a Senior Advisor at Compliance Strategists, SCCE’s Director of Public Policy, and Editor-in-Chief of CEP Magazine.

I have long believed compliance professionals should visit their field people and listen carefully and actively to them. I also believe in going into the field to see what is happening in the company to get a better feel for what the risks are. 

In my book 501 Ideas for Your Compliance and Ethics Program, idea 275 suggests that one purpose of audits and deep dives should be to look for best practices related to compliance activities.^[1] It has been my experience that field people can be very creative. While those of us in headquarters may be well connected with the literature and conferences in our profession, those in the field may also have creative and effective ideas based on their day-to-day contact with the business’s operations.