Why Is Compliance Training Important?
From best practices to ethical requirements, compliance training is focused on education for behavior change. Compliance matters because it gets your organization and employees up to date and on board with mandated policies and procedures. Reasons to make compliance a key element of your training strategy can be summarized into a legal case and a business case.
The Legal Case
Compliance training is often focused on laws and policies that govern safe and ethical work practices. When employees aren’t up to speed on these, resulting violations can end up costing companies in fines or even legal action. Organizations could face repercussions as serious as criminal charges or losing their license to practice.
The Business Case
The financial costs of failure to comply are perhaps easiest to see. Fines imposed can be hefty. For example, research shows that non-compliance with data protection costs companies an average of $4,005,116 in lost revenue. In addition, there’s a financial cost to downtime caused by accidents or unsafe work environments that result from failures to follow correct procedures.
But there are also positive implications for businesses that make compliance training a priority. Operations run more smoothly when everyone knows what should be happening.
Top Reasons To Invest In Compliance Training
Both of the above cases offer compelling arguments for stepping up your compliance training strategy. Let’s expand on those by talking about seven specific benefits you get from doing so.
1. Help Your Employees Succeed
Policy or ethical violations aren’t generally intentional. Compliance training helps people understand the rules. When done well, it also helps them understand why the rules matter and why they’re there in the first place. Good compliance training also teaches employees how to identify violations and how to proceed when they’ve spotted one. Education is preventative—it can stop problems before they even start.
2. Avoid Penalties
In many cases, compliance training addresses legal rules and regulations. The penalties for violations are clear and serious. As previously mentioned, companies may face fines, legal prosecution, or license removal. Violations may still occur even after training. But when you can show that employees attended courses, liability for any infractions aren’t transferred to the organization.
3. Create A Safe Workplace
Employees deserve to feel protected at work. Taking compliance seriously means your organization teaches and follows regulations around any potential workplace hazards. Whether it’s industry-specific training on working with dangerous machinery or chemicals, or general first aid and emergency-planning compliance, staying up to date assures employees they will be protected and valued.
4. Build A Healthy Culture
Another aspect of safety at work has to do with creating a place where people feel included and are treated fairly. Compliance training around ethics, fair treatment, and anti-harassment lets employees know what you value. Training also provides a chance to have conversations about difficult issues. A healthy culture makes sure everyone feels safe and can contribute their best work.
5. Stay Up To Date
Because policies and regulations change over time, you need regular compliance training to keep everyone in your organization up to speed. Offering training for all employees on a regular basis reminds them of requirements. It also lets you share the latest developments to ensure compliance going forward.
6. Protect Your Bottom Line
As noted earlier, the financial benefits of compliance are bigger than simply avoiding penalties. For example, research shows that solid health and safety training reduces injury and illness rates up to 40 percent, saving you the costs of associated downtime. And when people know how to do their jobs correctly and safely, you see more engagement and productivity, which leads to greater profitability.
7. Strengthen Your Brand
Ethics and security violations can do serious damage to your brand’s image. On the positive side, being public about your commitment to ethics and compliance helps boost your reputation. Research shows customers are more willing to support organizations that make ethics a priority. It turns out people want to associate with brands that stand for something they agree with.
Companies that include ethics in their code of conduct or that publicly espouse ethical behavior show increased profits and have greater customer loyalty.
Conclusion
There are many reasons to make compliance a focus within your training strategy. You stand to gain a lot from both a legal and a business standpoint when employees are regularly brought up to speed on mandated policies and procedures. You avoid fines, improve your culture, boost your bottom line, and strengthen your brand.
Download the eBook Compliance Training Guide: How To Make It Work to learn why compliance training is so crucial for your organization and how to leave a lasting impression on your team, even if they're working remotely.
References:
- From me to we: The rise of the purpose-led brand
- The Power Of Purpose: The Business Case For Purpose (All The Data You Were Looking For Pt 1)
- The Importance of Workplace Health and Safety
- THE COST OF NON-COMPLIANCE
