When a company hires a new employee, that individual must go through a training period. This time is essential to helping the employee learn the rules, regulations, and expectations of their job – which ultimately makes life easier for both the employee and the company - as well as get on-boarded to the company's culture and methodology. But, of course, training isn’t cheap; according to Training Magazine’s 2019 Industry Report, the average training expenditures for large companies was a whopping $17.7 million last year.
If a company plans to spend that much to train their employees, they should cover all essential topics in that training and make sure their investment is effective in addition to simply being completed. Here are a few of the key elements you should include in any compliance training.
Topics to Cover in Compliance Training
Employees need to understand the laws and regulations in their industry – as well as what you, the employer, expects of them. Therefore, it is essential to provide employees with comprehensive compliance training. A complete compliance training should cover every aspect of an employee’s position and industry, from how to log in each morning to the company and location-specific expectations.
Make sure that your compliance training includes each of the following topics:
Workplace Safety
As an employer, you want to ensure the safety and protection of your workers and your customers or clients. The reason for this is twofold: firstly, everyone deserves a safe and healthy working environment, and secondly, workplace accidents are bad for the bottom line.
According to the 2019 Liberty Mutual Workplace Safety Index, American companies lose over $1 billion per year due to workplace accidents and injuries. If you want to keep your costs low, it’s important that your employees know how to stay safe.
The easiest way to make sure your employees stay safe is to include workplace safety in your compliance training. Discuss first aid procedures, tool safety (if necessary), and general precautions (e.g., lift heavy objects with your legs, not your back) to make sure everyone knows how to avoid injury.
Workplace Violence
Unfortunately, the workplace is not always a calm and easygoing place. Too often, the workplace can become heated and tense – and sometimes, this can result in violence between employees, clients, or customers. Even the expectation of violence can have a negative impact on employee productivity, engagement, and retention.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports that over 2 million people are victims of workplace violence each year. With such high figures, it makes sense to include a workplace violence prevention focus within a modern compliance training program.
Through compliance training, you can help employees spot signs of potential violence (body language, behavior, etc.) and teach them to effectively de-escalate the situation or report their concerns (to the hotline, a superior, etc.). In this way, you can give your employees greater confidence to do their jobs and assurance of their own safety.
Anti-Harassment Safety
In addition to physical violence, many of today’s workers also face the horrors of sexual harassment. According to various studies, about 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men have experienced harassment in the workplace – and the effects of this behavior can be detrimental for a company, including employees who are not direct victims.
Workers who experience harassment are more likely to:
- Miss work,
- Suffer from depression, and
- Generally decrease their overall productivity.
It’s in the company’s best interest to make sure their workplace is a safe environment, and it all starts with proper compliance training.
When you introduce anti-harassment into your compliance training, it is necessary to clearly define harassment.
- Give examples of inappropriate behavior.
- Provide tips and strategies for dealing with harassment.
- Address what crosses the line into harassment and how to head it off before it goes that far.
- Most importantly, tell your employees precisely how to file a report when harassment occurs.
This will give your employees an avenue to speak up, and help you make progress toward stopping harassment completely.
Diversity Training
The workplace in America and around the world is growing more diverse with each generation. Many workers are spending time with people who don’t share their life experiences – they may be another race, another sex or gender identity, from a different generation, or living with different physical or mental abilities.
Putting people from so many walks of life together may seem like a recipe for disaster. However, these different viewpoints working together can lead to incredible innovation – as long as you foster that environment with diversity training.
Diversity training is an opportunity to show your employees the value in all the varying views and voices on your team. Make sure you clearly outline inappropriate behavior (and once again, give employees an avenue to report inappropriate language or behavior) and discuss ways in which your team’s diversity can become a strength. Finally, make sure you listen to everyone’s voice during the planning of and reaction to this training program – after all, diversity training should be inclusive of everyone’s perspective.
Online Safety
Much of today’s work takes place online. Between emails, cloud storage, company websites, and more, it is essential to protect your intellectual property – and your customers’ or clients’ personal data – in the digital realm. This is why digital security spending is on the rise, which estimates reaching $120.7 billion by 2021!
Make sure your employees know how to protect personal or sensitive information while online. This topic of your compliance training can include storing emails, password complexity, avoiding phishing and other digital scams, and other tips to help your workers protect their data and the data of your customers.
Emergency Preparedness
OSHA requires that all businesses offer their employees emergency preparedness training. This will ensure that your employees have a plan to protect themselves in the wake of any disaster, from an earthquake or fire to a chemical spill or bomb threat.
It is critical that your employees learn where emergency supplies are (such as a first aid kit or fire hydrant) and have access to and knowledge of all escape routes from the building. Finally, make sure your employees know the company emergency protocol, so everyone is ready to act in the event of an evacuation or other emergency.
Code of Conduct
The final element you should include in compliance training is your company’s personal code of conduct. This will vary from one organization to the next, but it is just as important as every other topic listed here.
Your employee is a representative of your company, and he or she should behave in a way that reflects your company’s values. Reading and "signing off" to acknowledge receipt of a policy may support legal defensibility, but to make that Code of Conduct effective employees must get training to apply the written word to their daily activities and decisions long after the annual training rollout. Therefore, you must communicate the behavior you expect to your employees, so they can meet your standards and accurately represent your business.
Utilizing Third-Party Compliance Training Programs
Creating a thorough and comprehensive compliance training program is important – but it’s also incredibly time-consuming. Many companies instead work with third-party companies to design their training programs, either through digital worksheets, in-person training, or video courses (which are particularly useful in today’s remote-working age).
If you want to use a third-party to craft your compliance training, make sure you follow these simple guidelines:
- Look for engaging content that suits your office needs (i.e., video training for remote workers)
- Make sure whoever you engage for your training has the knowledge and frequently updated content to cover frequently changing laws and regulations.
- Pick a compliance training program that you can customize to the policies and context of your particular workforce
- Choose a training program with quizzes and tests to reinforce learning
- Find a program that offers analytics, so you can spot weak points in your compliance and create benchmarks to improve. Bonus points for integrating analytics with other ethics and compliance efforts to increase your effectiveness and ROI.
With these tips, you will be able to craft a compliance training program that benefits your employees AND your bottom line.
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- 7 Key Elements To Include In A Compliance Training Program - October 11, 2020
