Challenge: Establishing Best-in-Class Compliance Program After Corporate Spin-Off
After being spun off from another company, Vista Outdoor needed to establish its own compliance program. Wanting to keep the functionality and compliance capability from the previous organization, Vista Outdoor looked for ways to start the new organizational venture on the right foot with robust compliance tools in place.
Solution: NAVEX Global Compliance Management Platform
EthicsPoint® Provides Safe Space for Employees to Report
For continuity, Vista Outdoor carried its use of EthicsPoint hotline and incident management software over from the previous organization. The company uses the system to record cases that come through the phone line, web intake forms and open door reports. EthicsPoint is regularly publicized to employees through posters at the company’s various locations, on the company website and through routine communication to the employee base.
“Our focus is to give the employees who feel as if they can’t report something and have their name attributed to it because they are concerned about retaliation an avenue to capture their concerns,” said Bob Schuettler, VP, Compliance. “Having a program and the ability to pick up the phone at two in the morning, and call somebody, and someone is going to answer the line and be able to hear them, take down their information, and move it forward is huge. It’s available whenever and wherever an employee needs it.”
As a standing agenda item on every quarterly board meeting, EthicsPoint also gives Schuettler the ability to easily report on data that come out of those employee calls and reports. The senior executives and board members are always looking for trends in terms of employee functions, locations and types of issues. “To already have that information at my fingertips and to be able to provide that kind of detail to those interested parties out of EthicsPoint is very useful,” he said.
PolicyTech® Automates Workflows & Eliminates Paper Trail
Vista Outdoor started their new company off on the right foot with a central repository for policies and procedures in the form of NAVEX Global’s PolicyTech software. Now corporate policies, function-specific manuals, instructions and procedures can all be maintained and updated conveniently.
Prior to PolicyTech, Vista Outdoor was tracking dissemination and acknowledgement of policies on paper. “We have a lot of sites and employees who work remotely, so the reality of sending something to an employee, telling them they have to print it out, sign it, and mail it to somebody from their remote location was cumbersome and costly,” said Schuettler. With automated workflows and built-in tracking from PolicyTech, the headaches of chasing a paper trail were eliminated.
Simply implementing PolicyTech was the impetus for another project to evaluate all of the company’s policies and procedures. This resulted in the development of a document hierarchy so that employees can go in and quickly identify – based on where they sit in the company – any policies, guidance or procedures that apply to them in their role. If an employee moves to a different business unit or location, they will then be able to go into PolicyTech and see the new policies and procedures that they need to be aware of.
NAVEXEngage® Ethics & Compliance Training Reinforces Policies & Offers Consistency
Building off of the company’s policies, Vista Outdoor’s training program uses online training courses from NAVEX Global. When the organization changes policies or adds new guidelines around a certain topic, the policies are reinforced through training to make sure that employees understand their responsibilities. Schuettler and his team are able to push out training to relevant employees through the NAVEX Global LMS system and track participation and completion.
With an Enterprise Training subscription, Vista Outdoor is able to combine full-length courses with micro learning courses that provide shorter-length training. A globally-optimized course library helps the company deploy relevant training to its international sites when needed.
The depth of the library and regularly updated content makes it easy to roll out training that responds to changes in regulations. For example, when California changed its laws regarding requirements for harassment prevention training, Vista Outdoor took the opportunity to push out the NAVEXEngage workplace harassment course to not just its California employees, but to the entire workforce, keeping the organization in compliance with the new regulation.
Consistency is a key benefit of the NAVEX Global training system. Not having to maintain multiple LMS systems and using single-sign on capability makes it easy for program administrators and employees. With builtin notification and reminder functionality, Schuettler isn’t having to chase down employees who haven’t yet completed their training.
RiskRate® Delivers Central Repository for Third-Party Due Diligence
After performing mostly ad hoc screening on its third parties, Vista Outdoor saw an opportunity to pull together its third-party information to get a better level of screening and more insight using RiskRate third-party due diligence software. The system was originally purchased with the intent of using it for the company’s closest partners – the third parties in which it had the biggest investments. “We wanted to have a better understanding and control in regards to what they may be doing, or how they’re representing themselves – and us. Are they out there acting nefariously, jeopardizing our company with potential corruption or bribery activity?” asks Schuettler.
Once the company started to use RiskRate however, a bigger opportunity emerged. “We quickly realized the much broader capability and utility of the platform,” added Schuettler. Vista Outdoor decided to work toward adding all third parties to the system including vendors, suppliers and even customers, creating a single location where everyone can access critical third-party information. “We really are looking at the system and saying: ‘Hey, here’s our one-stop shop for risk and compliance where we have diligence and analysis on all our third-party partners.’”
While the businesses in Vista Outdoor’s portfolio operate fairly independently, each business has access to the entire company’s third-party information. When a business unit is looking for a new vendor or a new partner in a new part of the country or world, there’s a central database with information on third parties that other teams within the company may already be currently using. “They can get up and running much quicker because the diligence has already been done, the risk analysis has already been done, and now it’s more a matter of entering into their own business agreement with that particular partner,” said Schuettler.
Results: Leveraging Compliance Tools from Single Vendor Brings Resource & Time Savings
With a suite of ethics and compliance solutions in place, Schuettler and his team are able to save time and resources while building a robust compliance program. “Being able to leverage what we have in one tool to help support the deployment or awareness of another tool is certainly there, and we’re always looking at how we can further utilize and optimize the platform,” he said.
Much of that optimization comes from having four core compliance program tools from the same provider. “All four solutions fall under me within my organization. That creates immense time savings when I have just one vendor I need to talk to and interact with to ensure we’re heading in the right direction,” Schuettler added.
About Vista Outdoor
Vista Outdoor Inc. is a leading global designer, manufacturer and marketer of consumer products in the outdoor sports and recreation markets. The company serves these markets through its diverse portfolio of well-recognized brands that provide consumers with a range of performance-driven, high-quality and innovative products, including sporting ammunition and firearms, outdoor products, outdoor cooking solutions, outdoor sports optics, hydration systems, golf rangefinders, action sports helmets and goggles, footwear and a variety of cycling accessories, stand up paddle boards and accessories. The company serves a broad range of end consumers, including outdoor enthusiasts, hunters and recreational shooters, professional athletes, as well as law enforcement and military professionals. Vista Outdoor employs more than 5,300 skilled workers worldwide.