Risk professionals had an extremely productive, challenging and stressful 2020, with businesses across every sector requiring insight, input, key skills, and tools to navigate the various alert levels and risks posed during the first stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. All this while continuing to remain compliant with regulations and legislative updates.

With Adjusted Level 3 Lockdown currently underway, 2021 looks set to keep risk practitioners equally busy. New regulations in effect due to COVID-19 have seen regulators become more active and with recent audits, companies are emerging as non-compliant.

Realising the importance of its role in supporting governance, risk and compliance (GRC) professionals through this time, LexisNexis stepped up to offer free webinars and online resources for professionals. These focus on effective governance, risk, and compliance planning, providing practical guidance on using the available tools and systems, demonstrating how to set up plans and systems, and guidelines to manage roles and navigate the challenges faced by the change from ‘business as usual’ to ‘business in a pandemic’, or what is being termed the ‘new or next normal’.

The next LexisNexis GRC Webinar entitled Ensuring Your Business is Proactive with Regulatory Requirements, presented by Greg Chamberlin, LexisNexis General Manager: Compliance and facilitated by Bosman Stramrood, General Manager: Lexis GRC, will be held on Thursday, 28 January 2021 at 10:00. Click here to register.

The session will look at the recent regulation trends and increased activity by regulators, providing guidance around how businesses can ensure they are fully compliant when audited. 

While no one could have anticipated the impact that the pandemic would have on businesses, those organisations with empowered risk professionals who had approved business continuity plans in place, were able to quickly adapt them to help them meet the challenges faced.

Just a few of the challenges faced on an ongoing basis during the national lockdown and remote working, in tandem with safeguarding critical business functions, included the closure of certain government offices and non-essential services, as well as the need for enhanced cyber security. On an operational level, businesses had to manage the appointment of Covid Officers, sanitising premises, procuring and providing personal sanitisation and protective equipment, and providing access to benefits, testing and sick leave as well as mental health support to employees.

As a result of the pandemic, the economic crises faced by many businesses and organisations no matter the size, has put the risk management role under the spotlight. Being able to identify emerging risks, remaining adaptable and able to pivot plans and resources towards the greatest need, without compromising big picture thinking, while continuing to adapt to new legislative updates such as POPIA was what, in many cases, determined a successful transition through the first year of the pandemic.

Having the right tools and systems in place will set risk practitioners, business professionals, government departments and managers on the path to building organisational resilience. This includes access to the necessary alerts to keep risk professionals updated in real time, combined with resources such as legal insights, commentaries and dashboards to manage each step of the process of the BCP implementation.

Are you a chief risk officer, an enterprise risk analyst or risk and compliance officer? A COO or Operations Manager, BCM officer, executive or manager in a corporate? A legal counsel or director of a law firm? Or a Municipal manager or executive, disaster management executive or OHS professional? Then this free Webinar is for you. Click here to register for the free webinar on 28 January 2021 at 10:00.