breaches must be clear and employees should be required to sign off
signifying their understanding and agreement to comply.
Training employees – Employers should not expect that by
implementing policies, staff will immediately fall in line with the
new practices that your organization will be required to imple-ment
under CASL. Employers must train all employees on their
new CEM policies, and any new systems adopted to support
CASL compliance, e.g. new Customer Relationship Management
(CRM) software. Training is critical, particularly in environments
that will need to help employees break historical non-compliant
CEM habits. Everyone in your organization needs to understand
their obligations under CASL and what steps are required to meet
ongoing compliance.
Monitoring compliance regularly – Compliance is an ongoing
exercise. This means that organizations not only need to estab-lish
procedures for sending electronic messages, but they also
need clear metrics for assessing compliance. This could be as sim-ple
as insisting that all CEMs are sent via your CRM software,
legal words
which is programmed to support and regulate ongoing com-pliance
with CASL. Whatever the case, compliance monitoring
means conducting regular internal audits to ensure that employees
are following the proper procedures. Also critical is ensuring that
someone is specifically designated within the organization as be-ing
accountable for monitoring ongoing CASL compliance.
While CASL regulations may seem burdensome at first, fo-cus
on the positive. This legislation offers your organization the
opportunity to refocus sales and marketing strategies, improve
promotional content, vet customer and prospect lists and reinforce
solid practices and procedures. It could also possibly rein in rogue
sales staff, and help employees work more productively and effec-tively.
What may seem like a business and HR nightmare at first
could instead present an opportunity for operational improve-ment
and bottom-line growth. n
Laura K. Williams is principal with Williams HR Law
Professional Corporation.
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