O PI N I O N Lets get better at this Hundreds of emails were sent between November 2022 and January, to ensure reluctant Affiliates are complying with FAIM requirements. Jesse van Sas, Secretary General, FIDI, explains why every company must ensure their documentation is submitted I have to get this off my chest. In November and December last year and up until the very end of January the FIDI office and I spent an enormous amount of time and effort getting our Affiliates to comply with the rules and requirements that all of them agreed to a long time ago. Specifically, I am talking about compliance with the annual Financial Assessment and annual internal FAIM audit. I almost lost count of the number of emails (620 in total) and phone calls I personally had to make and this was not counting the email reminders staff from the FCC sent throughout the year. There must be hundreds of them, all of which take up our time and your time. This is something that happens time and again, with no real improvement each year. It should not and cannot continue like this. The very philosophy of FAIM and any quality system is that it is a continuous process and that compliance with the requirements should be embedded in your own quality and compliance systems. Surely, you do not forget to renew your transport licences, or passports, or keep up to date with the other legalities involved in running your businesses and personal lives? Ensuring you have documentation for the financial assessment or the simple submission of your internal FAIM audit should happen almost automatically, and certainly immediately after the initial request to comply. This should be part of your normal business operations, and we should not have to remind you three, four, five times, even begging you or ultimately threatening to cancel your FAIM certification and FIDI membership, before you finally get round to doing it. We do understand that you are all very busy and completely sympathise with that. And of course certain things are considered less urgent, and can perhaps be delayed a bit. We get that and we would happily remind you from time to time. However, the management time we spend at each end of the year, chasing unresponsive Affiliates to do the right thing, is just getting out of hand. If you take quality management and compliance seriously, we could save you, and FIDI, a lot of time, effort and frustration, by making sure these membership obligations are inherent to your business operations, and are carried out upon request, at the worst after one reminder. Having to press you multiple times is simply not a sign of good quality, and certainly does not follow the spirit of FAIM. Id like to thank all of you who do submit the required documents on time or, when its impossibe to do so immediately, at least communicate back to us so we know where things stand. That is brilliant, and is exactly what a system based on quality needs. For those who have been reluctant to do so, and who were subject to my many email reminders and phone calls, please make the effort to ensure a timely submission of documents from now on. It will make your life a lot easier, and you can tick the box of FAIM compliance a lot earlier. It will save the FIDI office a lot of admin time, enabling us to concentrate on new developments to make FIDI and FIDI Affiliates stronger. In our FIDI vision and mission it reads that we do not compromise on quality. Not complying with agreed FAIM requirements ultimately means you lose your FAIM and FIDI membership. This has happened to a few of our Affiliates in January, and we will further enforce this requirement in 2023. Of course, youll still get a reminder, even two if needed, but if you remain unresponsive and pass the final deadline, the consequence will be expulsion from FIDI. We simply have to get better at this. Jesse van Sas, Secretary General of FIDI Global Alliance Connect with me on LinkedIn or by email: jesse.vansas@fidi.org Twitter: @jessevansas @FIDIglobal 21