Measuring regulatory compliance turns scattered policies and audits into actionable insight—using the right compliance metrics and KPIs to track performance, uncover risk, and improve outcomes across the organization.
Key Takeaways:
- Regulatory compliance must be measured, not assumed. Clear metrics remove guesswork and show where policies, training, and controls are actually working—or failing.
- Compliance rates provide a baseline, not the full picture. Overall compliance percentages are useful, but they must be paired with deeper KPIs to explain root causes and trends.
- Effective compliance KPIs go beyond violations. Metrics like detection time, response time, policy access, and corrective action effectiveness reveal program maturity.
- Continuous monitoring is essential for accurate measurement. Ongoing audits, real-time reporting, and multi-source data provide a reliable view of compliance performance.
- Compliance data should drive action and improvement. The most valuable metrics inform decisions, prioritize resources, and strengthen governance—not just reporting.
Ensuring regulatory compliance at a large organization can seem as complicated as maintaining commercial aircraft. Not only do you need to manage risks and costs, but you also have to account for the actions of thousands of workers. What can help? Learning how to measure regulatory compliance gets rid of the guesswork and provides precise data for more effective decisions.
How Do You Calculate Compliance Rates?
You can determine your organization’s overall regulatory compliance rate by dividing the number of compliant employees by your total personnel count. For example, if you found 40 violations and you have 2,000 workers, your general compliance rate would be 98%.
Here’s how the calculation works:
- 2,000 – 40 = 1,960 compliant employees
- 1,960 / 2,000 = 0.98
- 0.98 x 100 = 98% compliance rate
You can also use this method to calculate noncompliance. A compliance rate of 70% is the same as saying that 30% of workers don’t meet policy requirements.
How Do You Measure Regulatory Compliance?
The method you use to measure regulatory compliance varies depending on your goals, industry, and available technology. You should follow regulations closely.
1. Choose Program Objectives
Lower the time required for data gathering by choosing compliance objectives beforehand, such as:
- Minimizing regulatory violations
- Increasing training completion rates
- Reducing the costs of compliance efforts
- Improving the accuracy of risk assessments
- Measuring the areas of compliance that give your organization the most difficulty
It’s normal for different roles to need different sets of key performance indicators.
2. Select Metrics and Targets
For each objective, select connected metrics that provide the necessary information to ensure compliance:
- Descriptive data: Simple KPIs that reveal what happened and how many times
- Diagnostic data: Multi-attribute metrics that answer why and how failure events occur
- Predictive metrics: Advanced analytics that integrate historical data or computer models to generate compliance predictions
Descriptive metrics are effective at revealing positive and negative compliance trends. Diagnostic metrics help you identify the root cause of compliance issues. Predictive KPIs can warn you of serious failures so you can make risk-informed decisions.
3. Perform Compliance Audits
Much of the data you need for regulatory compliance measurements comes from audits. These include formal internal audits, real-time monitoring reports, and periodic external validation assessments. Document all regulatory failures.
When violations happen, there are usually smaller underlying causes. For this reason, compliance monitoring should start with internal policies, such as risk management metrics.
4. Set Up Compliance Monitoring
Regulatory compliance is a continuous process, not a one-time achievement. To measure your organization’s progress, you need an organized compliance monitoring system that pulls data from various sources:
- Employee or manager surveys
- Security incident reports
- Network scanning assessments
- Penetration testing
- Vendor questionnaires
Set clear targets so metrics mean something. Establish a baseline and percentages for your compliance goals.
5. Analyze the Data
Avoid missing the forest for the trees. Focus on the most important metrics for your current regulatory compliance push.
Gap assessments help you compare your current practices and policies with in-scope framework requirements. This makes it easier to set practical, high-value compliance goals first.
You should also look out for patterns and trends in your data. This type of information can reveal your organization’s unique pain points, obstacles, and bottlenecks.
6. Apply Insights
Compliance metrics are most helpful when they inform your decisions and real-world processes. Use data to improve efficiency with up-to-date industry practices, advanced technology, and other solutions.
For example, if workers are slipping back into bad habits, ask why. Can you simplify compliance processes, like automating documentation?
Which Compliance KPIs Should You Track?
You can put together reports with countless regulatory compliance metrics, from risk management and policy data to whistleblower programs and training statistics. Many organizations track GRC metrics for every department. Feel free to customize metrics to address specific compliance concerns and challenges.
1. Recurring Non-Compliance Events
Regulatory compliance violations are vital to track, but you especially want to pay attention to recurring problems. Related KPIs to monitor include:
- Total recurring issues
- Recurrence trends by department
- Impact of corrective actions on recurrence rates
- Frequency of recurrence
Repeated violations are a sign of deeper issues with governance, worker quality, or training programs. Compliance software can even track habits at the employee level to identify problem workers who simply don’t care.
2. Policy Access Rates
How often are your employees checking policy documents? Are they using the correct version of published policies?
3. Average Detection Time
Rapid detection reduces the impact of errors and the risk of serious violations happening, such as data breaches. You should also track automated detection rates, employee-reported issues, and audit frequency.
4. Issue Response Time
Detection metrics evaluate the strength of your defenses. Issue response time judges the effectiveness of your policies, procedures, and assigned professionals. Similar metrics include time to first corrective actions, issue resolution time, and percentage of issues successfully resolved.
5. Effectiveness of Corrective Actions
Do your corrective actions work? This metric can reveal whether policy changes are needed. It also touches on the appropriate severity of disciplinary actions.
6. Percentage of Compliance Objectives Met
For complex, long-term frameworks like GDPR, you need a way to break down compliance into manageable chunks. Tracking the progress of smaller and larger objectives keeps your organization going in the right direction.
7. Training Completion Rates
Alongside metrics for training frequency, you should have a way to make sure employees complete compliance programs. Related metrics include post-training test scores, employee training engagement metrics, and feedback from your workers.
8. Post-Training Incident Reduction
Is your training delivering the desired improvements? Correlating training with compliance metrics shows how well courses cover the necessary information and how much workers remember.
9. Vendor Audit Frequency
Regulatory frameworks generally hold your business accountable for the actions and security of your vendors. Are your teams consistently auditing third-party providers? Do they know which vendors present the greatest risks?
How Do You Track Compliance?
Data analytics models have made it much easier for enterprises to measure regulatory compliance. Advanced platforms like Compyl distill raw data into smart reports, real-time tracking, and strategic goals. Stakeholder feedback and qualitative assessments also provide invaluable insights.
Use technology to uncover the root causes of noncompliance issues. Create instead of wasting time on pointless tasks. Simplify your framework with a cost-effective compliance solution. Request a demo today.
