Online Compliance Training Courses
Posted December 12th, 2011
If you work in human resources, one of your responsibilities may be the oversight of your company’s online compliance training. Online training is now widespread, and many argue that it can be an effective way of learning. But do you know how well your online programs are working?
Stephen Paskoff, CEO of a provider of ethics and compliance learning solutions, tells the story of someone working at a financial services firm who had to complete 17 online courses covering financial transactions ranging from ethics and discrimination to harassment in about one day. The man said he clicks his way through the courses but learns little. He just tries to get through it as quickly as possible to get his bonus.
Another person who works at a manufacturing firm says he clicks through the courses as fast as he can. Everyone looks on the courses as pretty much of a joke, he said. Once the courses are completed, management never mentions them again.
Paskoff says when the courses are delivered this way – without any context or follow-up – they really are of little benefit to employees. These type of click-through courses are set up just to give employees some legal information and document that they received it. But just getting information in this way really doesn’t do much to change behavior.
Paskoff argues that to really change the types of employee behavior that causes problems in the workplace or that is even illegal, workers really need a strong motivation for change, and with that, simple guidelines to follow.
The information cannot be conveyed simply as a one-time event, without any follow-up or emphasis from management. Company leadership needs the tools and the know-how to continually reinforce the messages delivered in the online program.
The problem isn’t with the online compliance training, which can be very effective, but with the delivery of the message. The way these online courses are handled tells the employees that the company really doesn’t value them and what they have to say all that much. They come across as some unthinking ritual. A company’s leaders need to provide continual support for the messages in these courses, and the messages themselves must be clear, simple and direct, so that they can be easily followed. Otherwise, the courses will continue to be mostly a time-wasting exercise, providing merely the legal cover the company needs in the event of employee claims against the company.
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