Ensuring compliance at all levels of the workforce is vital to operating a successful business. Recent investigations and regulatory action have revealed that this is more than a check-the-box activity – it requires active involvement from everybody within an organisation.
Often, regulators will look to the steps taken by an organisation when assessing the penalties to be imposed for a legislative breach. Rolling out compliance training for staff is one such step, showing active efforts to prevent misconduct and unlawful behaviour.
This is why compliance training is now seen as an investment in an organisation’s future and longevity.
Every business faces unique challenges, and senior management should reconsider how compliance training is delivered. Training should be relevant to staff, and provide clear examples to consolidate understanding.
Here’s how businesses can improve overall learning and retention rates, taking compliance from a check-the-box task to a pillar of organisational culture.
1. Tailor training to company and staff to ensure relevancy
For staff to feel engaged when undertaking training, it needs to be relevant to their working situation. It is neither efficient nor cost-effective to train staff in areas of legislation that do not apply to their industry or area of work.
Management should approach staff training from a sector perspective and a role perspective. This might look like ensuring that the marketing team understands anti-competitive conduct, whilst the finance team understands their obligations under anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing legislation.
Delivering training modules relevant to the individual and their specific role means that compliance becomes more than an exercise in law-abidance, but an educative experience in overall work performance.
The result? Increased engagement and knowledge retention, decreasing the likelihood of a breach and its associated reputational damage.
2. Checking adequacy of knowledge
The purpose of compliance training is to provide employees with a well-rounded understanding of the regulatory environment of their industry and the associated policies and processes within the organisation.
But if an employer is not setting benchmarks and measuring staff knowledge and retention levels, how can it be sure that its workforce understands their compliance obligations?
Studies have shown that testing following learning reinforces knowledge and allows for better retention. Put simply, failure to engage with information learnt means that a person has a 97% chance of forgetting what they have learnt within 3 days.
Testing staff after they have undertaken compliance training is a vital step in the process, allowing an employer to understand overall compliance levels within the organisation, and helping staff to consolidate their learning.
3. Keeping the shift online interactive
A substantial increase in the digital delivery of training programs is underway across all segments of the workforce.
When executed properly, online training brings a multitude of benefits: real-time reporting to track staff completion levels, scheduled rollouts, and flexibility – an ability for staff to complete course content anywhere and at any time.
Online and in-person training do not need to be mutually exclusive. However, a blend of online learning material and interactive scenarios means that personal interactivity and engagement present in traditional training methods can still be achieved online.
4. Maintaining consistency with legislative change
Compliance training is not a one-time activity. With legislation changing regularly, a responsive approach must be taken to ensure staff are regularly trained and comply with current legal requirements.
Taking a consistent and ongoing approach means that an organisation remains on top of the law, instead of struggling to keep up. Ensuring that staff are trained annually helps prevent legislative changes from slipping through the cracks.
Engaging a compliance partner can take the stress out of compliance, as they can help develop a suite of courses that are suitable for your staff, whilst also ensuring that courses are constantly updated to reflect legislative and social changes.
Finally, compliance training is an investment, not a cost
Tailoring courses to staff and organisational needs is the fundamental difference between run-of-the-mill training, and engaging compliance training that is aligned to an organisation’s goals, ethics and culture.
All levels of an organisation benefit from a compliance training solution that is engaging, industry-specific, and ensures staff knowledge retention through testing and consistent updates.
Anything less is, at best, a waste of budget and at worst, a massive reputational risk.
For more than 25 years, Safetrac has been a leader in engaging compliance solutions for all types of business. For more than a decade, Safetrac has been recognized by the LearnX foundation, along with a number of their clients (Air New Zealand, Toyota, Chubb, Australian Unity, Fisher & Paykal, Salmat, David Jones, Acciona and Cricket Australia) for creating the best compliance training program in Asia Pacific.
Our collaborative approach ensures that we fully understand your business and budget to find the best solution for your staff – to train them now as well as to re-engage them year-on-year.
It’s one of the reasons why no Safetrac client rolling out our compliance training annually has been found by a regulator to have an inadequate compliance training program in place.
Contact us today to learn more or preview any of our courses – available as SCORM or through our online compliance platform.
