Why Compliance Teams Should Consider Hiring ‘Generalists’

An obvious choice? Maybe not. In his New York Times bestseller “Range”, David Epstein creates a strong argument why in many cases generalists have skills that specialists don’t. He deconstructs the notion that employees and scientists need to find their specialty early on in their career and then practice to make sure they don’t lose the race against their specialized peers. Epstein’s argument: some of the most important discoveries and innovations in the world would not have happened without people acquiring broad and general knowledge and experiences instead of deep and narrow ones.

What does this mean for Compliance? Compliance is moving away from a “tick box” mentality to an ethics-based approach that focuses on culture. Compliance needs to be integrated into the company’s processes and business models. The Compliance team needs to understand what drives different business areas and be able to put itself in the shoes of colleagues in sales, marketing, accounting, management, R&D, IT to name a few. Each of these departments deal with very different challenges. The best Compliance teams understand these different challenges and make compliance relevant to different roles by tailoring communication, processes and standards to them.

Now, this does not mean that candidates with a legal background or a narrow specialization are not able to take on other perspectives. It only means that candidates should not be dismissed just because their CV does not include Compliance buzzwords or a law diploma. They might in fact be the addition a Compliance team needs to add a fresh perspective, to bring experience that the current team doesn’t have, or to challenge ‘we have always been doing it this way’.

Some companies have already started to diversify their Compliance teams. They put together teams of political scientists, sociologists, economists, people with backgrounds in marketing, journalism or sales. This enables a broader perspective and better answers to questions like: how do digital, disruptive business models work? How should a communication campaign be designed to achieve maximum impact among our employees? How does the media work and how would certain events be perceived by the public? How should we measure success in Compliance, and how can we acquire the necessary data?

In addition to their knowledge and experience, people with diverse backgrounds can support stakeholder engagement. For example, a Compliance Officer who has worked as a Sales Manager before is likely to find common ground with the Sales team. They will share similar experiences and understand each other’s mindset. This helps the Compliance team to better connect, understand their colleagues’ daily tasks and challenges and ensures the Compliance team isn’t working in an ivory tower.

You might say that having generalists on the compliance team is all well and good for large companies with significant resources at their disposal. For companies with more limited resources, they essentially face a choice. Do they have a short term need that requires specific compliance expertise or would they prefer to hire a generalist with diverse experience who is passionate about compliance and will take the necessary qualifications? The latter choice requires some courage: if the generalist underperforms, questions about why this person was chosen over the experienced legal professional, who might have looked better on paper, may arise. On the flip side, a team of very-specialized legal experts could fail to connect with employees and therefore be less effective. As a lot of research has shown across different fields, diversity is strength.