Compliance Training for Companies: From Safety to Ethics

A variety of regulations exist to ensure that organizations behave in a way that is safe and efficient for their surroundings. They regulate corporate activities, especially those dealing with people, their data, the environment, or hazardous substances. Compliance training​ exists to ensure that all company employees understand what they need to do and don’t violate any laws and policies.

Some of them are issued by government bodies in countries where the firm operates, while others may be created directly by the firm to improve its working environment and reputation. The reason for such rules and complying with them is that they prevent dangerous events and reduce the chance of something bad happening in general.

Here, we’ll oversee a wide variety of policies and compliance programs built on them, and then try to evaluate their potential efficiency and explore the best practices. Before that, let’s explore the basics.

Such rules aren’t just blind requirements which must be followed by any price. They are issued by regulation bodies for a reason: to prevent dangerous events from happening and protect people who live under the jurisdiction of these bodies. Companies are interested in maintaining their reputations and protecting their clients and workers, so they also participate in issuing such policies. The compliance training definition​ is the learning program that focuses on delivering the theory of the regulations that must be followed. Then, there are practical lessons, where employees learn how to actually follow these policies.

As with any other learning materials, compliance training can be created, delivered, and tracked using learning management software (LMS). As we support digitalization, here we mostly focus on conducting compliance training online​.

Every company has to deal with aspects that may lead to problems of any type. Some companies deal with substances that may harm the environment and people, such as pollutants or carbon dioxide. Others work with people in different aspects, so their success or failures may affect their clients directly. It’s especially true for medical companies who may either heal or kill a patient. Corporate compliance training​ for each of those companies will be different, but equally important, as its workers should know how to follow best practices that wouldn’t harm anyone.

Another aspect is informational safety, which has become increasingly important due to growing digitalization. It includes not just personal data like names or contacts, but much more sensitive ones like payment information or medical diagnoses. In the future, it may include information that allows manipulating physical objects or even human brains, which is possible considering the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) and neurotech industries.

Lastly, HR compliance training​ ensures following all labor law policies and establishing a healthy work environment. It includes topics like ethics, anger management, and diversity, which are essential for people who work together. They should also be delivered in the right way, so employees will find these topics engaging, rather than boring. That’s the problem with many compliance training sessions. According to the latest statistics, most employees consider such training boring, even though only 14% of them have over one hour long sessions.

We can summarize that every company need some type of online compliance training for employees. Examples are:

Let’s look at them closer, and then summarize by pointing out how to make training sessions more engaging and effective.

Thus, different regulations exist to reduce potential hazards from various activities. They range from work danger mitigation to improving workplace health. While all these training types are different, they are important, so let’s explore them closely.

Let’s begin with the most fundamental topic for compliance training for employees​. Safety is crucial for any company where people have more injury or other accident risks than in everyday life. It includes activities like mining, working in the wild, regular driving, constructing, or firefighting. Interactions with production engines can be also included here, especially if they perform actions that can potentially injure people. Relatively safe tools like 3D printers require introductory training if an employee hasn’t used them before.

Still, even employees who work in a basic office setting must be familiar with its evacuation plans and be able to use a fire extinguisher in case of danger.

Many types of compliance management training​ are designed based on specific regulations that exist in different countries. While this article is mostly based on policies issued in the United States and the European Union, similar ones exist in most countries. According to the Investopedia article, the number of various regulations that create boundaries of “do” and “don’t” for businesses have increased drastically in the last decades. While it’s criticized sometimes for limiting the free market and hindering innovations, such measures ensure people's rights protection, reduce incident rates, and prevent violations from stronger market players. Therefore, intelligent business regulations are essential for sustainable growth.

OSHA stands for Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the United States, and this type of staff compliance training​ is all about preventing workplace incidents. It is close to safety training, but it’s more specific and includes standards on different topics, such as fire, electricity, heat, water, chemical, construction, and driving safety. It also regulates medical safety, including infectious disease control. These standards are regulations issued and updated by an agency, and it’s always open for clarifications on every topic.

OSHA compliance training​ covers all potential incidents that may happen at your workplace and provides materials for mitigating them. Before creating a training program, explore the workplace and write down all potential danger zones, from fire and electricity control to disease risks. Then, based on the OSHA website, you can create a training program based on chosen dangers, decreasing their risks.

Even if a company doesn’t work with potentially hazardous substances or engines, and doesn’t participate in activities like mining or firefighting, interpersonal communication is an important aspect of any organization. Ethics and compliance training​ are deeply interconnected: while ethics cannot be reduced to the law or policies, it is very important to maintain healthy human relationships. Ethics training may include an overview of different moral dilemmas and practical tasks on solving them while helping each other with their routines and participating in teamwork.
According to Steele’s article, such training requires reliable metrics to measure how ethical is each employee’s behavior. Each compliance training course requires such metrics, and in this case, they may include measuring the willingness of employees to help others in different situations. Also, it’s possible to check their honesty about which problems they’ve solved correctly after letting them solve some work-related tasks when a manager already knows the output.

One topic of ethics compliance is especially important: anger. People can lose their temper when they are frustrated, disappointed, or feel that their rights are violated by someone else. If not prevented at its root, it may lead to violent quarrels or even fights. It would have a devastating effect on staff morale, even if initiators were dismissed. While strict rules are required to stop employees from harming each other, it’s also essential to help them recover psychologically if they feel bad.

A close theme is alcohol compliance training​, required to ensure that employees don’t abuse alcohol and drugs. It’s closely related to the company’s policies that prescribe how to act in case of substance abuse and shows the way to legally dismiss misconducting employees.

Continuing the talk about ethics compliance training​, let’s focus on business ethics. Unlike general ethics compliance, which covers mostly the company’s internal affairs, it’s about communicating with business partners and avoiding unfair competition. It also includes trademark and patent respect, and encouraging such attitude in other businesses. Companies with strong business ethics compliance have a strong reputation and loyal stakeholders, which is highly beneficial for them.

While multicultural teams were present in all eras, in the 20th century they became widespread due to globalization. Nowadays, with the wide usage of the Internet and remote work, actually, most teams are multicultural in some way. Talking about cultural, social, and personal backgrounds, they are even more diverse, so people working in one team may be totally different and understand similar things differently. Successfully managing these differences is crucial for the company’s survival and competitiveness.

That’s why good safety and compliance training​ should consider this aspect. According to Ferdman’s research, diversity management requires understanding tensions between different parts of the collectives and easing them, allowing these different people to express themselves under one set of rules. As different business intelligence organizations show, teams that introduce such measures are much more successful and competitive in a business environment, being able to solve different problems together.

Continuing the topic of ethics and diversity, it’s important to maintain a healthy work atmosphere in general. While anti-harassment training can be delivered in several short videos, it is an essential element to build such a healthy environment. They can include showing harassment examples, so employees can prevent this behavior and stop themselves if they start to behave like that themselves. The training can also explain how a victim can protect themselves and ask for help. The responsibility for misconducting employees should also be implemented in company’s policies.

HIPAA stands for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in the United States, and it regulates how health data should be managed, especially in the case of digital healthcare databases. Safety compliance training​

If a company have access to administrative, political, or financial resources, its employees mustn’t abuse this power. Financial compliance training focuses on delivering local and global financial laws to the employees. It also may include playing specific scenarios related to bribery and corruption, where employees must decide how to behave in compliance with the law, how to protect themselves, and how to call law enforcement in case of violations.

Any company that impacts the environment in any way should comply with regulations relating to this topic. Training in compliance​ here includes the management of various toxic or otherwise hazardous substances that are present at the workplace.

If you sell something abroad, it requires following many export regulations, including customs laws of countries where you operate and where you plan to export. In other cases, your shipments may be returned or even arrested. Other possible factors include international sanctions and export controls due to the geopolitical situation, which is an important work aspect for business audit companies like Deloitte.

Human resource management requires following the labor laws of the country where the company operates. It regulates the maximum workload which is possible for employees and how work contracts should be signed and created. It also defines the procedure for such important aspects of businesses as hiring, salary payments, minimum wage, and dismissal. HR compliance training for employees helps HR managers understand what they need to do, while other employees can know their rights better.

For example, according to Forbes, there are interview questions which are non-compliant, and employees can freely refuse to answer without being disqualified. There are many such aspects in HR law, and it’s essential that your employees know them and can apply them in their daily routines.

Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act is the U.S. regulation that determines the rights of persons with disabilities in accessing information and communication technology. It includes a wide list of 508 Standards, which define how web interfaces, computers, and other technologies that facilitate connectivity should be designed.

Therefore, 508 compliance training​ focuses on ensuring that persons with disabilities can still access your product, especially for software development. It’s a robust investment into making your product inclusive and accessible, and also increases your reputation.

Nowadays, IT departments are present in almost all companies, especially middle and large ones. Even those that don’t have the department, usually have at least one IT-related position. If there is data—there are requirements to ensure its safety, protecting the company’s servers from breaches or exploits. Compliance safety training​, in this context, teaches employees to manage information, especially user data, according to local data protection laws. The company may also introduce its own data management practices, which may be beneficial for its reputation as a trustworthy provider.

Let’s continue on the topic of data protection. Technical training and compliance activities show employees how to work with data they have access to. Even if such activities seem self-evident, they should be clearly documented and delivered. According to the Skillsoft factbook, more than 75% of U.S. customers wouldn’t choose a service provider if they didn’t trust their data to it. Moreover, the average yearly security breach costs for U.S. companies almost reached $8.2 million, while the worldwide average is two times smaller—which is still a large number. It highlights the need to teach employees to handle customer data on the company’s servers, manage, and protect them.

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the European Union 2018 policy that regulates how user data must be handled by companies providing services for EU citizens. The website contains specific information on how to create compliance training programs based on the regulation, easing the task for compliance training group​s.

In addition to local and global policies that should be followed by any organization operating in the region, companies can also issue their own when they see fit. As with government regulations, it can have both positive and negative effects, which company governance should consider. Too many regulations and requirements can make your employees overwhelmed and push them away, while too few can leave you unable to solve systematic problems that may arise.

Conducting good human resources compliance training​ is essential to communicate these regulations to employees and gain their feedback. It will show your management whether the company’s current policies are efficient and whether some of them should be removed.

Now we see which specific regulations exist and should be followed in various contexts. Let’s figure out how to create a specific compliance training plan and what to do with it further. See the scheme below to navigate among compliance elements that must be included.

Then, we’ll focus on evaluating the compliance strategy quality, but before, we should have a plan to evaluate. A corporate training program has a similar pattern for different subjects, and compliance isn’t different here. Let’s overview an action plan.

That’s how you can have compliance management training​ that helps you comply with regulations, reduce risks, and improve efficiency. Let’s now see which problems you may face when delivering the training and how to overcome them.

When you make a compliance program, you want your employees to follow everything stated here. But the problem is, they often see it as something boring and unnecessary. You can make full-scale compliance training courses for employees​ with the best possible materials and covering the latest policies, but they will just ignore these courses. Therefore, no difference will be made, and your efforts will be in vain, no matter what you do.

Compliance courses are considered boring because employees usually don’t see their applicability and feel that they should just blindly follow some rules. It’s really demotivating, but you can change it and adopt another approach, where employees can learn with interest. Let’s look at what it can contain, based on our knowledge of human nature.

Good compliance training examples​ are those where employees aren’t bored and complete all tasks with enthusiasm, understanding why they need it and how exactly it can help.

To wrap up this longread, let us think about how we can make the compliance training program​ that your employees will actually follow using the learning management system. We’ve seen how to organize different compliance types, which problems may arise, and how you can cope with them. The main problem is employees’ reluctance to complete the training and follow the rules strictly. So, let’s see what can help here!

How the LMS can be used for compliance training​? We already have an action plan for how to create a training program, but now, let’s see how to make it fun and engaging with the LMS features.

Therefore, good compliance training platforms​ help managers create interactive and engaging educational courses. Boredom is the main problem during compliance learning, as following regulations is often seen as something forced and even repressive. To make a healthy and efficient work environment, show them other compliance courses: robust, vivid, dynamic, and useful. Show them how they and the whole company would benefit from following these rules, instead of trying to impose them. Good luck with your training, and don’t forget to contact CleverLMS if you have any questions or suggestions!