Regulatory requirements continue to evolve around the world, holding large, medium, and small businesses accountable for meeting compliance across environment, health, and safety (EHS) topics.
Why is compliance more challenging for small businesses?
Many industries must navigate fast-paced regulatory changes, generating a host of challenges for smaller businesses who may not have the resources, staff, or time to dedicate to tracking developments. And keeping on top of changing standards is crucial for business success.
Resource constraints
Smaller businesses, by default, have fewer staff than medium or large-size companies. And while they may only be tracking regulations in one jurisdiction or region, rather than multi-nationally, these companies may not have the staff or systems in place to monitor and report compliance.
Further, they may struggle to identify compliance gaps, understand the actions required from emerging or revised legislation, or respond in a timely manner.
Budgetary constraints
In addition to managing team responsibilities, smaller businesses may not have the budget available to invest in strategies, resources, or systems designed to simplify compliance. This, then, returns the issue back to needing enough people scanning the regulatory landscape.
Time constraints
In certain topic areas, regulatory changes can very quickly assign additional pressure onto companies, with sudden revisions or new laws to restrict and ban substances or enhance monitoring and reporting requirements. If multiple requirements enter into force at the same time, it can be overwhelming for smaller companies to find the time to respond and adapt their processes accordingly.
Tips for small businesses to manage compliance
To strive for compliance, promote sustainability, and avoid fines and damages, small businesses may have to leverage slightly different tactics for tracking and implementing changes.
Tip #1 — Adopt a proactive rather than reactive approach
Responding as regulations shift puts additional pressure on small businesses to very quickly adapt their operations to meet changes in compliance. Instead of responding reactively, small businesses will benefit from adopting a proactive approach to their compliance.
Having a comprehensive and holistic overview of emerging and forecasted regulatory developments is vital to stay ahead of sudden changes.
Businesses can do this by keeping abreast of potential changes with a tracker solution. RegScan’s RegTracker tool, for example, provides global regulatory changes and federal and state requirements across more than 270 jurisdictions. Users are offered notices, proposed regulations, and finalized legislation information for the topics and regions they select.
Tip #2 — Prioritize changes with greater risk
With non-compliance fines posing a huge risk, particularly for small businesses, it’s crucial that companies find time to identify the most important, or most impactful, regulations. While keeping a holistic view of the overall regulatory landscape is useful for forecasting future changes, small businesses with less time and fewer resources should concentrate on the requirements specific to their industry and area to ensure they’re meeting compliance where it matters most.
Once these have been identified, businesses would benefit from creating an effective plan to implement the prioritized regulations before they come into effect.
Tip #3 — Take advantage of alternative avenues for expert advice
Accessing expert help and guidance can be challenging for small businesses, due to budgetary and time constraints and lack of knowledge of who to source.
In-house legal analysts and external lawyers are often employed by larger, multinational companies to provide insight into regulations to aid leaders in understanding their next steps. However, this expert advice can be costly, and for a small business, it may not be the most accessible option.
Alternatively, small business owners should take advantage of other avenues, such as webinars and Q&A sessions.
Thirdly, small companies who are part of a larger supply chain, leading to bigger corporations, could seek support from business partners.
Contact RegScan to see how we can help your business.
Leverage RegScan EHS Alerts to stay ahead
Small businesses may need to experiment with different tactics to meet and maintain compliance, but having a comprehensive understanding of which regulations apply, when they come into effect, and how they will be met is crucial.
Keeping track of changing regulations can be difficult for both seasoned EHS businesses and smaller companies navigating the landscape. RegScan’s EHS Alerts tool helps your organization stay on top, with:
- RegTracker to manage compliance across jurisdictions
- My WatchList to instantly be alerted to regulatory changes
- LookOut for customized searches
- Strikethrough to easily compare old and new regulatory documents
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