Ethics and compliance training is taking many positive strides, with companies focused on building ethical cultures and preventing crises before they happen. But there’s still a distance to go, as well, amid persistent budget constraints and other challenges.
Those are the key findings in our third annual Ethics & Compliance Training Benchmark Report for 2016, produced with data collected from over 644 respondents across 20 industries and organizations all over the globe.
On a recent webinar, I talked in depth about the findings and offered guidance to companies regarding industry best practices that could help improve and mature their ethics and compliance programs.
Many companies face multiple obstacles to creating and implementing effective ethics and compliance training programs. The best way to combat many of these challenges is to devote significant energy to planning ahead. Creating a multi-year online training and communications plan helps produce ethics and compliance training programs that are more engaging, avoiding learner fatigue—as well as helping stretch small budgets.
Incorporating different media and formats into training programs has been shown to better engage employees, as well as decrease learner fatigue. We encourage companies to consider offering training programs with interesting story lines, animation and/or video content.
Additionally, many companies have begun to assign courses based on the learner’s role or risk exposure within the organization. This can help cut back on the amount of training that individual employees must go through, and help cut costs by avoiding training employees in areas that are not relevant to their jobs.
It’s good to see organizations of all sizes realize that training is critical in building a strong ethics and compliance program. But many organizations need to take the next step: making sure effective training is provided to everyone—including the most senior executives and directors.
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