Despite Several Years of Budget Growth, Compliance Median Headcount is Trending Down
Stamford, CT (March 18, 2021) – A study of 117 organizations in the second half of 2020 showed that compliance department spending was projected to plateau in 2020 after several years of rapid growth, according to Gartner, Inc. In the period from 2017-2019 total compliance spend per 1,000 employees grew more than 42 percent, from $114,000 to $162,000. However, due to the widespread economic disruption of COVID-19 that figure remained the same in 2020.
“Like many business functions, compliance spending has been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic,” said Brian Lee, Managing Vice President in the Gartner Legal and Compliance practice. “However, the pandemic has significantly increased the workload faced by legal and compliance teams as they grapple with new risk issues and a more remote work environment.”
In fact, the pandemic has heightened a slew of organizational risks that compliance leaders have needed to monitor more closely (see Figure 1).
A deeper look into compliance department spending found that the median compliance department decreased its headcount between 2017-2020 from 12 to 10 full-time employees (FTEs).
“One reason for the decrease appears to be a shift in spending away from headcount to technology and outside spending,” said Lee. “Many compliance functions were allocating more spend in 2020 to external experts, training and communication vendors and compliance technology expenses than in 2019.”
While compliance departments only planned to increase their personnel spending 1.6 percent in 2019-2020, the median compliance department planned to increase their spending on external experts and services by 30 percent. Similarly, compliance technology expenses were projected to increase 15 percent and compliance training and communication vendors spending to increase 13 percent.
“Compliance’s mandate has expanded and organizational risks have been heightened by the pandemic,” said Lee. “These spending trends indicate that compliance leaders intend to look for more scalable ways to handle the burgeoning workload rather than simply increasing headcount.”
Gartner experts recommend that compliance leaders evaluate current technology offerings that enable communication and collaboration and improve efficiency in an increasingly hybrid and remote work environment.
“It’s also critical to work more closely with other functions, including legal and privacy, to better manage new and existing risks within a remote workforce and establish clear guardrails around risk,” said Lee.
Compliance leaders who are facing an increased workload without any increase in staffing should also evaluate technology offerings that offer insight into an expanded compliance risk universe and control for threats to ensure a strong compliance culture.
Gartner clients can learn more 2020 State of the Compliance and Ethics Function.
Non clients can learn more here: 2021 Top Priorities for Legal & Compliance.
About the Gartner Legal & Compliance Practice
The Gartner Legal & Compliance practice brings together in-depth research and analysis, peer-based best practices, metrics and data to offer legal and compliance leaders a platform to make the choices that will drive their business forward and deliver results. Additional information is available at https://www.gartner.com/en/legal-compliance. Follow news and updates from the Gartner Legal & Compliance Practice on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Gartner
Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading research and advisory company and a member of the S&P 500. We equip business leaders with indispensable insights, advice and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities today and build the successful organizations of tomorrow.
Our unmatched combination of expert-led, practitioner-sourced and data-driven research steers clients toward the right decisions on the issues that matter most. We are a trusted advisor and objective resource for more than 15,000 organizations in more than 100 countries — across all major functions, in every industry and enterprise size.
To learn more about how we help decision makers fuel the future of business, visit gartner.com.
