Happy Compliance Officer Day 2024

26 September is international Compliance Officer Day. Yes, it’s a thing.

Working away behind the scenes are thousands of people whose job it is to not just check that the letter of regulations are met, but also the spirit. In consumer product safety, compliance officers work hard to ensure all products are safe for users – from babies through to elderly consumers.

It’s a challenging gig

In my 2018 white paper on the challenges of consumer product safety compliance, I wrote:

“Beyond traditional compliance challenges, the consumer market is experiencing unprecedented change. A number of trends are impacting the nature of consumer markets and the safety of products, including:

• increasingly price-driven competition
• increasingly globalised manufacturing and markets
• growing online retail and auction sales
• more educated consumers with higher product expectations
• evolving product technology – more products incorporating electronics”

To that list today, in 2024, I would add that in Australia and elsewhere:

• the current cost of living situation has added more pressures
• online retail sales have sky-rocketed
• there are unprecedented levels of product regulation (including domestically or internationally unharmonised)
• increasingly, product compliance practitioners have sustainability, fair trade and other issues within their remit (often without extra resources)

It is a very tough job, and compliance officers deserve a day to celebrate their heroics. They also deserve to be celebrated by other employees, and the society at large. National Compliance Officer Day was founded to appreciate these dutiful men and women as professionals in the field of compliance. National Today website

Training and certification

At present, those charged with ensuring the safety of all Australian consumers have to learn their craft on the job. And they are not well supported by corporate, community or government infrastructure. No vocational training qualifications exist for ensuring safe products. Little has improved since I wrote about this in 2018.

A few Australian business associations show excellent leadership in helping compliance officers navigate product safety and regulatory compliance, but more is needed.

I plan to update the white paper soon, but six years on, for Compliance Officer Day 2024, I  think the work in product safety compliance (in Australia at least) has become even more challenging. I hope more support will come soon.