In the age of evolving technology, organizational exposure to compliance risk is rising while the cost of compliance soars. But, there are solutions that can cut both the risks and the cost.
One of the most significant challenges compliance leaders face is efficiently training their staff to maintain compliance within all of their digital communications. With the increase in digital communications channels and work-from-anywhere setups, regulatory compliance leaders must ensure employees understand how to engage in compliant communications. They also have to prove the efficacy of their training programs and are often at a loss for data that truly shows that training is working. Did the staff understand and retain the information enough to put it into practice?
Today, the common way to understand if employees are engaging in compliant communications is to closely monitor and review all written communications, which can be inefficient given the number of false positives that occur. Or, you could wait until employees violate compliance standards and be stuck in a legal battle—but there are ways to be more proactive that are less harmful to both employees and the organization.
Getting to the Root of It: Behavioral Patterns
What’s the goal of a compliance training program: to influence and change behavior. Organizational leaders are looking to teach employees to work in a way that achieves compliance. The impact is magnified when those changed behaviors turn into automatic actions and new behavior patterns emerge that further support compliance.
Done right, those newly learned behavioral patterns become ingrained into the organizational culture—changing social structures, attitudes, and organizational ethics. When there are positive changes made to culture, the organization reduces the risk of unwanted behavior and poor decisions.
The problem is that most compliance training programs aren’t rooted in changing behaviors. Instead, they deliver information to employees in a classroom setting—online or in-person—using hypothetical situations and memorization. This method isn’t wrong and it meets the tick-the-box standard, but there are ways you can enhance training to provide better results that encourage implementation and positive behavior change on a daily basis.
Now is the Right Time for Just-in-Time Training
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. Merely reviewing and memorizing information is not critical to learning. It’s boring, and the retention is often poor. Instead, real-time training helps transform hypothetical teachings into real-life learnings. Employees get feedback, create a new plan, and adjust their behavior.
With these active-mental processes, employees are more likely to retain what they have learned and take a different approach the next time they are in a situation that could lead to a compliance violation.
Fairwords, for example, is a solution that offers training within the tools that employees already use, like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Outlook. Employees get in-the-moment feedback as they type, prompting them to change any language that might be putting their communication at risk. The tools embed compliance training into their daily work by keeping rules and policies front and center in the actual context of their work.
For example, if an employee types non-compliant language in an email, an active notification appears alerting the employee of the potential harmful language. The message explains why the language is potentially harmful, and the employee has the ability to decide if they want to change their language or not. These prompts help prevent damaging messages from getting sent because employees are immediately educated, reducing risk, and reducing the number of communications that require review.
Business leaders get insights into the number of analyzed messages, flagged messages, and the amount of flags that were repeated (which for many of our clients, decrease over time showing the efficacy of the training prompts). The dashboard identifies top flagged terms and communications channels (approved and unapproved), so companies can begin to understand the language and applications that produce the most flags.
How a Fairwords Client is Proving Just-in-Time Training Works
An energy commodities trading company sow looking for a compliance solution that would further mitigate ecommunications risks. They implemented Fairwords and leaned on the active notifications to keep employees’ digital communications compliant. Their senior trade compliance manager reviews Fairwords analytics to measure the usage of language that could be out of compliance with rules and policies. Since using Fairwords, they have a clear view of what type of language triggers Fairwords notifications the most.
The company’s senior trade compliance manager used Fairwords’ analytics to provide the executive leadership team with detailed compliance reports. Not only does Fairwords help them prove the effectiveness of real-time training, but the company’s employees express their appreciation too and find value in the real-time prompts to help them stay on track.
“Fairwords analytics show the true impact of the training. In the beginning, some traders were apprehensive about the active notification. But now, after a year, they are more aware of what they can and cannot say, and they appreciate it,” says the Fairwords client.
With an AI tool like Fairwords, the company’s employees learn in real-time while they work, which has improved their communication and increased the efficacy of their overall compliance programs. They’re happy, educated on their company’s compliance needs, and empowered to avoid risk.
Just-in-Time Training is a Win-Win for Compliance Leaders and Their Employees
With training given to people as they type, compliance leaders can rest assured that employees are being educated on all rules and policies in real-time when it’s most relevant. Leaders can also assess the effectiveness of training programs and measure the impact using Fairwords analytics. The more real-time training an employee receives, the less often risky communication comes up. With fewer violations, communications review costs are reduced and organizations can redirect their resources. It’s a win-win for both organizations and their employees.
With Fairwords and just-in-time training, you can change behavior patterns and monitor your success through analytics. Try Fairwords for free and see for yourself.
