In addition to the role of the Chief Compliance Officer, there are two different types of other compliance jobs: generalists and specialists. Consider a hospital for example. Like any business, the hospital must comply with things like the tax code, anti-discrimination laws, the FLSA, OSHA, and much more. Because it operates in the healthcare space, the hospital must also comply with proper billing procedures, environmental health and safety conditions, HIPAA privacy and security regulations, research requirements, and again much, much more. To ensure compliance in these complex areas, the hospital turns to compliance specialist with specific expertise in each subject area. For instance, the human resource office oversees compliance with FLSA and other employment related laws. The office of clinical research, medical billing office, and tax office handle their respective areas of compliance and so on. With these experts ensuring compliance in their specific areas, the hospital remains in compliance with crucial state, federal, and industry regulations. Even though this specialist approach is very effective, the hospital's compliance regime can't stop there. There is still a broader need to foster a compliance conscious environment and culture, oversee the hospital's entire compliance program, and identify infrastructure needed to support the various areas of regulatory compliance. Institutional compliance officers are needed to satisfy that function. Often operating through a more centralized compliance office, institutional compliance officers or I'll call them generalists, work to create a proper culture and foundation for a compliant organization. For instance, the hospital's compliance generalists set a general code of conduct for the hospital employees to follow. They deliver training sessions to ensure employees are aware of their compliance related responsibilities. They create and often maintain a compliance hotline and anti-retaliation policies to encourage whistle-blowers to report any compliance failures. To uphold the integrity of the hospital standards, the generalists would conduct risk assessments, monitor operational activities, and administer quality assurance reviews. Now, while compliance generalist might not know the labeling requirements for hazardous materials or how to code a medicare claim, they serve an equally important function. They ensure that everyone in the organization, from top to bottom, knows where to go if there's a compliance concern. Overall, they help foster a culture of compliance that minimizes corporate governance failures. Compliance generalists and specialists together are both key to helping large organizations and small organizations manage compliance. As the regulatory landscape becomes more complex in fields like health care, there's an increasing need for compliance specialists that can help companies interpret and apply specific regulations. The hot market for compliance specialists is highlighted by the growing number of certificate programs on topics like medical coding and billing, and human resource compliance. Companies that successfully combine compliance specialists with compliance generalists, who can tie compliance programs together, are likely to avoid embarrassing and costly compliance failures.