The Importance of a Compliance Training Strategy for Employers: Why It Matters
- By: Andrew Easler, Esq.
- Published: Oct, 7 2021
- Updated: Mar, 14 2023
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Your organization cannot operate without regulatory compliance despite the policies not being as exciting as you may want them to be. Violation of compliance policies and certification requirements can have detrimental impacts on the smooth running of your organization’s operations. The negative implications of a breach of compliance policies can range from lawsuits, fines, and sometimes criminal charges.
Regulatory and corporate compliance allows your organization to function efficiently and safely while also helping your organization meet set goals. Regulatory compliance also ascertains that your staff adheres to all set rules and regulations outlined by the national, state, and local government.
It’s essential that your institution provides compliance training to all your staff, stakeholders, clients to help them understand the guidelines and regulations they must follow since policies change all the time.
However, with the training you give and the distinct facets of everyday life, it’s easy for your organization to overlook or rush through the training. Your organization may only spend very little time going through the compliance policies or hand your employees copies of the guidelines to read and understand on their own.
Corporate and regulatory compliance coupled with work ethics is more significant than just regular official processes in the onboarding process. Compliance training should be continuous to keep everyone updated on changing policies and regulations.
In most cases, governing and accreditation agencies require your organization to offer consistent training and staff tracking to prove that everyone in your organization is trained and understands the fine print of compliance policies.
Compliance Training: What is it?
Compliance training involves the process of ascertaining that employees understand the regulations, internal policies, and laws that your organization is built on. Compliance training also ensures your employees understand how and why they should adhere to the set guidelines and regulations.
Practical compliance training should go through actual life instances of how the policies and work ethics relate to their positions in the organization. This will guide them to manage various workplace situations in a manner that benefits both them and your organization as a whole.
Effective compliance training will help your employees excel. They will know their duties and boundaries and, in turn, make them more productive under minimum supervision. Your employees will also learn how to respond to situations and know the next steps to take in every issue that arises.
Differences Between Corporate and Compliance Training
Corporate training typically involves training on everyday organization operations. Corporate training covers areas such as utilizing new computer software, filing reports, and requesting leaves and breaks. On the other hand, compliance training has a broad spectrum of policies and regulations.
Compliance training includes:
- Organization’s laws and the consequences of its violations.
- Sector-specific regulations such as disclosure of financial information.
- Client’s information privacy.
- Reporting requirements.
- Ethical and legal issues.
- Organization’s principles, values, and operating guidelines.
Compulsory training has to be continuous and compulsory. When your organization has an effective compliance training procedure, it lays the foundation of a healthy and productive workplace where everyone can communicate seamlessly and avoid potential pitfalls.
General Compliance Topics That Require Training
The specific issues addressed in compliance training differ from one organization to another. Furthermore, some training varies from occupation to occupation and from one department to another.
For instance, some organizations, such as the financial and healthcare industries, are more strictly regulated than other industries, such as SaaS (Software as a Service) organizations. Sectors that are highly regulated require extensive training on policies such as HIPAA regulations.
Organizations can cover the following compliance training topics:
- National (federal) and state laws
- Organization policies and operating procedures
- Information security and privacy
- Fraud prevention and detection
- Business ethos
- Discrimination
- Sexual harassment
- OSHA regulations
- Risk management
As compliance can vary between departments, organizations can require their finance staff to undergo extra training on fraud detection and prevention than staff in the marketing department, for example.
What are the Benefits of Compliance Training?
If your institution is not keen on compliance, they may not understand the significance of compliance training. Here are some of the benefits to help your organization capitalize on compliance training.
Reduces Risk of Compliance Violations
Online compliance training methods combine studying with employee tracking to be connected directly to staff performance. With compliance training, you can measure:
- Areas that employees are compliant with.
- The period from the previous compliance update.
- Compliance topics that have been completed.
- Non-compliant topics.
Online compliance training methods match topic enrollments with user demographics. This method helps reduce the risk of violations by monitoring training and record maintenance as compliance evidence.
Online compliance training methods can send you alerts of previous and present compliance completion and when renewal of compliance policies come up.
Compliance training, therefore, helps your staff understand what compliance training they should partake in to adhere to their compliance requirements.
Encourage a diverse and safe work atmosphere
All of your employees must understand your company’s objectives for providing a welcoming, professional, and safe environment.
It’s essential to remember that harassment isn’t limited to physical assault or intimidation. Verbal bullying, incorrect jokes, and uneven treatment are examples of abuse.
Managers play an essential role in fostering an integrated and healthy workplace. Your organization should train managers and leaders to manage conflict and foster a similar-opportunity team atmosphere.
Finally, everyone in the company should feel free to report everything that jeopardizes a fair and respectful work atmosphere. Staff should be aware of how to voice concerns within your company safely and appropriately.
Assist in the formulation of organizational policies
Leaders must develop organizational ideals to foster a healthy culture. They must convey those principles clearly and effectively so that workers feel connected with them.
It’s not enough to have ideals displayed across the organization’s media. Translating compliance regulations into everyday behaviors and standards that workers can connect to is when excellent digital compliance training comes in handy. It has the potential to deliver positive results.
Balances Ethics and Organization Priorities
A healthy compliance culture encourages employee accountability, which is one of the significant advantages of compliance training. Staffs feel involved in their company when they believe they are performing responsibly.
Leaders may assist employees by awarding them for exhibiting ideals that correspond with ethical practices. Furthermore, executives may create an environment where workers feel free to express their concerns or suspicions when anything is wrong.
Improves your Brand’s Image as well as your Bottom Line
You could believe that a non-compliance penalty has a one-time financial impact. This is not the case. The harm to an organization’s reputation that results might cost your organization considerably more. Your company will be the focus of prospective customers, and financiers
On the other hand, spending on compliance training ahead of time might enable you to avoid not only social controversy and disgrace but also attract like-minded clientele. Your dedication to compliance, security, and ethics may help you stand out from the crowd.
To demonstrate your dedication to compliance and its training, you may utilize social media, blog pieces, organizational values, news feeds, and more.
Organizational managers’ attitudes and management styles directly influence organizational outcomes. You’re creating the foundation for improved productivity by educating your management and staff to foster a compliance culture.
Make a Robust Audit Trail
It isn’t enough to merely “give compliance training”; you must also be able to demonstrate that it took place. First and foremost, from a legal standpoint, your company requires a clear audit trail that identifies which personnel comply in what areas.
Your company must demonstrate that workers were involved in the training, that they comprehended the topic, and are capable of performing the requisite actions or knowledge.
Web-based compliance training includes built-in evaluations, which increases employee responsibility. It can assist your organization in establishing that workers comprehended and could apply the essential compliance understanding – evidence that might be crucial in the future if an individual fails to adhere to proper processes.
Compliance training, consisting of assessments, should be combined with organizational policy, incorporating adoption, on a web-based compliance training module.
If your company has a certification body, they’ll require confirmation that your staff kept their qualifications up to date to do their jobs. Similarly, you may need to create frequent internal auditing for newly hired employees’ induction or current employee qualifications.
In all circumstances, having a single source of information with fast access to data, rather than a jumble of obsolete worksheets and documentation, provides significant advantages to compliance training.
Compliance Training from WorkTraining.com
At WorkTraining.com, we provide compliance training that helps companies simplify operations and people enhance work performance. Our programs are dynamic, designed to keep students engaged, and backed up by advanced software and professional advising. In addition, Our training programs are developed with a high degree of interaction and multimedia content to attract and keep learners interested and engaged. Learners are educated on the legislation and requirements that pertain to their occupations using scenario-based instructional content.
For more information on how we can assist in risk, regulatory, adn compliance training, contact us at 1-888-390-5574 or send an email to [email protected]
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