“Firms cannot design effective compliance programs without effective measurement tools. For many firms, appropriate measurement can spur the creation of leaner and ultimately more-effective compliance programs.”
— Hui Chen and Eugene Soltes, Contributing Authors, Harvard Business Review
Compliance training programs aren’t serving your organization if they’re only built to satisfy the requirement and ‘check the box.’ Conducted yearly in a classroom setting, they often lack real-life, in-context application. The hope is that employees will remember the material weeks or months later and apply it correctly when the situation calls for it. Developing effective compliance training programs that enable employees to retain and use the learnings in their day-to-day lives provides many benefits. It reduces the risk of non-compliance, balances priorities and ethics, boosts reputation and the bottom line, and promotes an inclusive and safe workplace, building the foundation for positive workplace culture. This week, we explore how to build and measure effective compliance training programs and why doing so is important for organizations.
Creating A Strong Corporate Culture That Begets Compliance
We’ve covered the importance and advantages of building a positive corporate culture at length, and the consequences of a poor one. Yet as few as 12% of organizations feel they’re driving the “right culture” that promotes communication, inclusivity, frequent training, and high business values. Corporate culture is an excellent indication of the strength of a company’s risk and compliance program. As aspects of culture improve, lower risk and stronger compliance will naturally follow. Organizations need to build the kind of corporate culture that begets compliance conscientiously. Learn three effective strategies to build a positive culture that reduces risk and helps achieve compliance.
How to Move From Reactive to Proactive Ethics and Compliance
There is a great opportunity to reimagine and reset company culture with employees returning to work. Leaders must re-examine the rule book and evolve their compliance and ethics programs to meet the needs of a hybrid workplace and higher employee expectations. There is an opportunity to build healthy cultures through more proactive and preventive compliance and ethics measures. Companies now have the tools at their disposal to prevent harassment and toxicity from happening in the first place by embracing proactive and preventative training and technology measures. Learn three considerations to get leaders thinking proactively about ethics and compliance.
Why Compliance Programs Fail—and How to Fix Them
Organizations spend millions of dollars on compliance programs, yet misconduct frequently occurs because many firms approach compliance with the intent of simply checking the box. They continue to invest in them—not because they think it’s necessarily productive but because there is fear of exposing their organizations to greater liability should they fail to spend enough. Employees are forced to sit through yearly training and confirm they understand the rules, but the effectiveness of the programs either isn’t assessed or is assessed with inaccurate metrics. To remedy this trend, companies need to link compliance initiatives with specific objectives accompanied by better metrics that identify what’s working and what isn’t.
The Best Way to Reduce Compliance Risk in Digital Communications: Just-In-Time Training
Organizational exposure to compliance risk is rising while the cost of compliance soars. Compliance leaders must ensure employees understand how to engage in compliant communications while simultaneously proving the efficacy of their training programs. They are often at a loss for data that truly shows that training is working. The biggest problem with traditional compliance training programs is that they don’t offer the material in a way that resonates and stays with employees. Instead, just-in-time digital communication training helps transform hypothetical teachings into real-life learnings. It’s a win-win: employees get feedback and can create a new plan and adjust their behavior, while leaders are able to accurately assess the effectiveness of training programs and measure the impact through analytics.
