How to successfully manage corporate Compliance Training

Corporate Compliance Training is an essential part of promoting a culture of ethics and compliance within a company.

In fact, it’s about providing employees with the knowledge and skills necessary to comply with the company’s laws, regulations, policies and procedures. It is therefore a mandatory training course.

Very often, unfortunately, it is seen as something standardized, boring, and at times unnecessary – precisely because it is perhaps done in the wrong way or because it is undervalued in general. Yet compliance training can cover a number of topics that are really interesting and vital to the proper functioning of an organization – including anti-corruption, data privacy, workplace harassment, and health and safety.

Employees, therefore, should take these courses and related tests carefully, but this is primarily the responsibility of those who create them.

Indeed, effective compliance training must be engaging, relevant, and tailored to the needs of the organization and its employees. It must also be regularly updated to reflect changes in laws and regulations and to address emerging risks.

Summary

• Can traditional compliance training be carried on?
  • We learn from mistakes
• Let’s look at traditional approaches together
• Create a new strategic compliance corporate culture
• How to use Artificial Intelligence for Compliance Training
• Here is a list of compliance courses you should know about
• In short

The world of online training opens the door to different ways of delivering these courses, giving their creators the opportunity to produce them in quantity while remaining able to update them at the click of a button, as well as to make them more engaging – perhaps by making them interactive, multimedia or enriching them with gamification elements.

Can traditional compliance training be carried on?

As we anticipated, the same compliance programs cannot be administered to every single employee, as they need to be tailored to the specific needs of the organization and employees.

However, it was the evaluation of these programs that pushed companies toward a change of approach in compliance training, highlighting the ineffectiveness of traditional, generic training courses.

The global pandemic has further highlighted the importance of considering the human aspect in compliance training. Personal and professional lives have become intertwined in unprecedented ways, and organizations have recognized the need to respect and support employees not only in the workplace, but also outside of it. In this context, compliance training offers an opportunity to demonstrate that care.

We learn from mistakes

To ensure employee support and alignment with external guidelines, several aspects need to be considered in the design and delivery of training.

First of all, it’s important to pay attention to the content and update it whenever needed. Laws and regulations must be translated into clear, meaningful and actionable guidance that shows employees how to do their jobs correctly. Concrete examples and realistic scenarios must be provided that enable employees to understand how to apply the rules in their specific work area.

Second, it is critical to consider how to convey the message of compliance. Training should use delivery methods that engage and stimulate employees. It is advisable to replace the dear old lectures or static presentations with more dynamic approaches that encourage active participation and in-depth understanding of compliance concepts.

Finally, compliance training must be made easily accessible to employees. With the increase of smart and flexible work arrangements, it is important to adopt online or digital platform-based training solutions that allow anytime, anywhere access. Interactive modules and self-assessments can be used to make learning more engaging, effective and brain-friendly.

Let’s look at traditional approaches together

Far too many companies do not realize that they are using the wrong methods to create their compliance courses. So, below we reveal some of them so that you can stay away from them.

• Remove anything that is not strictly relevant, so you can focus on quality-rather than quantity-and encourage participation. Your employees’ time has value: designing functional, impactful and relevant training is a great way to recognize this.

• Always update content, because you can’t expect to create a course and then leave it there for years to molder. It is important to take into account the risks that emerge from time to time and the evolution of the company and adapt training accordingly.

• Customize training to the specific roles and responsibilities of employees, rather than providing generic training-neither efficient nor effective.

• Do not use compliance training only as a means of defending against possible noncompliance issues. You miss the opportunity to empower employees and provide value along the way. Shifting the focus from simply protecting the company to engaging employees in understanding and applying compliance regulations is the key to adopting a new perspective. Training should be designed to educate and empower employees, enabling them to understand the importance of compliance and adopt ethical behavior.

• Make your employees aware of the need for a robust and evolving compliance program. Content must adapt to the context to keep pace with change.

Create a new strategic compliance corporate culture

It is a fact that companies with an ethical and compliant culture tend to be more successful. However, as we said at the outset, compliance training is often seen as a burden rather than an opportunity.

Thus, you have to be able to create a compliance culture in the workplace, and in this regard, we want to give you a couple of tips.

So, after listing the things to avoid, we want to give you some pointers to improve your compliance training – to make it as effective as possible.

1. View compliance problems as human problems. Compliance training must be seen as something extra, but useful. It should therefore be designed with the goal of helping employees make more studied decisions. It also helps develop a deeper understanding of ethical principles and the implications of compliance regulations.

2. Going beyond rules to change behavior. It is essential to take an approach that goes beyond rules and restrictions: leveraging marketing and persuasion techniques can positively influence employee behavior. By focusing on the motivations, benefits and consequences of ethical choices, you can promote lasting change in employee behavior.

3. Start with values and culture. A crucial aspect is to involve employees in defining ethical values in creating a culture on compliance, creating a sense of belonging to an organization that views ethics and compliance as fundamental pillars.

4. Create an ad hoc training course. Identify the risks of your business processes and analyze the complex situations your employees experience every day in the performance of their duties – leveraging good storytelling to engage Learners.

5. Normalize the collection of data. They can provide valuable information about the effectiveness of training and the work environment, enabling the organization to make targeted improvements.

How to use Artificial Intelligence for Compliance Training

Artificial Intelligence is a great medium through which compliance training can be implemented. In fact, having an automation and machine learning system to help us manage courses and employees is an incredible help.

A common use case of AI in compliance training is customizing content to the needs of Learners through data collected from user activities in previous training sessions. AI therefore defines rules about what content a learner should receive or what topics he or she should focus on when assigned a course.

Moreover, because it uses each employee’s data and assigns training to everyone, there is no problem of bias or negative implications.

For example, if a manager took an anti-corruption course last year and did not perform well in identifying public officials, the AI recognizes this and automatically focuses the course content to reinforce lessons on this topic.

It’s kind of like having a digital tutor always at your disposal!

Not only does this help HR (as does our beloved Zendesk, which we discussed here), but it leads to better results, higher quality, consistency and user satisfaction.

Here is a list of compliance courses you should know about

Below you will find a short list of courses on compliance and mandatory training – with really key topics – that businesses and organizations are required to provide to their employees.

• Course on Privacy e GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation);
• Course on Code of Conduct Policy and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR);
• Course on Whistleblowing, for the procedure for reporting wrongdoing;
• Course on Risk Management and Risk Analysis;
• Course on Anti-Bribery and Corruption, and Transparency;
• Course on Anti-Money Laundering;
• Course on Health and Safety;
• Course on Cybersecurity.

It is easy to see from the titles the ethical, social and regulatory importance of compliance training for any organization. Therefore, it is essential to select an e-learning platform for compliance training that enables Learning & Development managers to deliver, certify and monitor the effectiveness of corporate training.

In short

Let us try to recap what has been said in this article.

In addition to the benefits of promoting ethical behavior and reducing the risk of legal and financial penalties, compliance training can bring additional benefits to organizations, such as:

• improving employee morale and job satisfaction;
• enhancing corporate reputation;
• increasing the likelihood of attracting and retaining top talent.

The future of compliance training requires a customized approach that considers the specifics of the organization and its employees. It is essential to create a link between compliance requirements, training, and the day-to-day responsibilities of employees, providing them with the resources they need to do their jobs in an ethical and compliant manner.

To effectively address compliance issues, it is critical to view them as human issues and develop training that helps employees make better decisions. Using marketing techniques to influence behavior, starting with corporate values and culture, is of crucial importance. In addition, the collection of meaningful data makes it possible to evaluate the effectiveness of training and its impact on the people involved.

Until next time!

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