How Compliance Training Makes Your Company a More Attractive Place to Work

Compliance training is a hot topic. The question: how to make it effective, long-lasting and more engaging to employees than watching paint dry.

When done correctly compliance training creates a strategic advantage for your company by minimizing operational and financial risk. It's worth the investment.  

Unfortunately, one of the problems of some compliance training is that success is often measured by what doesn’t happen, which can include fines, lawsuits, reputation damage, lost business and more. And in some cases, noncompliance with safety procedures can mean life or death.

Despite this, HR and learning and development professionals are often pressured to prove the ROI of investing in compliance training demonstrating its value with numbers can be difficult.

Non-compliance is simply not an option in successful companies

Non-compliance is expensive even aside from potential fines and penalties. There are other consequences that aren’t so obvious. Non-compliance often erodes employee morale (“If the Company doesn’t care, why should I?”) and hinders their ability to perform key job functions. What makes compliance particularly challenging is that laws and regulations are ever-changing.

Here’s the deal … laws are always changing. New cases arise, reinterpretations emerge, and changes happen. Failing to stay up-to-date means failing to understand what’s expected of you and your employees—which can easily result in more lawsuits.

And you can’t use ignorance as an alibi. While it can be nearly impossible to understand or interpret laws on your own (for starters, regulations are universally long and filled with enough legal jargon to choke a hippopotamus), you’re still responsible for keeping current.

The State of New York, for example, introduced stricter sexual harassment legislation in October 2018 in response to an avalanche of accusations and lawsuits. The state now requires every employer to have a sexual harassment policy that meets very specific regulatory requirements. The policy must be distributed to every employee and training must be provided with virtually no exceptions.

Many of the statutes can apply to companies with as few as two employees. Additionally, New York City added more than a dozen extra regulations for employers within the metropolitan area. Of course, this is hard enough for those employers completely contained within the state. But what does it mean for multi-state employers or those with contract employees in NYC?

Research shows that organizational leaders aren’t ignoring the fallout of non-compliance, even when it just comes to costly penalties and other related risks. Brandon Hall reports that 54 percent of executives call better compliance management a “high priority.” So, what can you do to protect your organization and better prepare for the complex, resource-intensive, and challenging task of managing compliance?

Developing a culture of compliance comes from leadership

There is a need for management to adopt a proactive mindset when it comes to compliance training because being simply reactive to it is foolish. Leadership must stay on top of upcoming regulatory changes and anticipate potential dangers in the workplace before they happen. Being proactive and making sure employees are trained—and safer—when it comes to compliance generates a more positive company culture and a better place to work.

Consider three areas as compliance training moves into 2019, 2020 and beyond:  

1. harassment in general and sexual harassment in particular
2. workplace violence and safety  
3. diversity and inclusion

You might be wondering why standard compliance training that we’ve had for years isn’t sufficient today. Because learners have changed and the way they want to learn is radically different than even 10 years ago. And, no matter how exceptional the nuts and bolts of your training is, if your employees don’t learn it and change unwanted behaviors, you’ve wasted valuable resources for nothing.   

This is why it’s critical for management to be heavily involved in training for your program’s success. Your managers’ influence is key to drive your message home and they are your first line of defense to maintaining compliance throughout your organization.

Give your managers the tools they need to succeed

Be sure to equip managers and supervisors with the content and training they need to deliver the safety and compliance messages to their direct reports. Invest in the development of train the trainer content (i.e., FAQs, facilitation guides, handouts etc.) that can be updated and deployed on a regular basis.

In addition, while supervisors and managers are key to the success of your training program, don’t forget these same managers, executive staff and board members likely pose the most risk to your organization in many situations. 

Finally, far too much compliance training falls under the “check the box” standard of giving employees minimal training just so the company can meet minimum regulatory requirements. While some compliance training is perfectly acceptable to receive this way (i.e. training on how to safely operate a piece of equipment used on the job), training of the type we cover in this paper deals with human perceptions, biases and beliefs and cannot be one size fits all.