How To Build A Corporate Compliance Training On A Budget
Building corporate compliance training can be a daunting task. It requires careful planning and understanding of the value of compliance training. Off-the-shelf content can be generic and unengaging, not to mention expensive, so it’s important to consider other options.
So how can you build effective compliance training on a budget, whilst still ensuring they’re useful and engaging? Take a look at our 4 tips below to help you get started.
1. Work Out Your Budget
The first thing to consider is how much you can afford to spend on your corporate compliance training program. Working out your organisation’s goals and key risks will help you decide. If the cost of non-compliance is very high, then under-investing in compliance training is dangerous. Start by looking at what the minimum compliance requirements and ensure your budget will cover these adequately before moving on.
You should also consider the ROI from a fully compliant workforce. A well-informed employee will perform better and be a benefit to the company in the long-term.
Once you have looked at the requirements, it’s also worth considering the cost to deliver.
Consider how you might utilise your existing employees. Every organisation has its ‘experts’, who are the more experienced employees that have unique insight and know-how within the company.
Gathering these experts together and sharing these unique insights is far more cost-effective and purposeful than generic off-the-shelf content. Use their knowledge as a means of creating new digital resources that focus on specific organisational issues.
2. Target Specific Groups
Before building your corporate compliance training resources you need to understand who you are targeting. Look at the day-to-day challenges your employees face and focus your resources on addressing these.
By focusing on providing resources that are directly relevant to their jobs, you avoid wasting money being spent on materials that will never be looked at or put into practice.
Your compliance training needs to give staff a clear understanding of expectations, standards, both personal and professional obligations. Look at the scenarios your employees are likely to encounter in their role and make it relevant for them.
When deciding what your compliance training aims are, you need to specify the outcomes you wish to obtain. These need to be relevant and directed at the roles and tasks employees perform. An all-encompassing module may only have limited relevance for certain people. Instead, extract the relevant areas and target the people who need to apply it.
No matter what approach you take or how much you budget, your efforts will be pointless if the training has no effect. If it doesn’t engage the learner and doesn’t seem relevant to the employee then it’s not making an impression. This could prove to be hugely costly for a business, especially with compliance training, as low engagement and a lack of interest will increase the likelihood of important information being missed or ignored.
3. Create Your Own Resources
Generic courses are expensive and do not deliver content in the context of your organisation. Consider creating your own digital resources instead. By using insights from your organisation’s experts as mentioned in tip 1, you’ll find your employees are much more likely to engage with training materials that are relevant to their jobs.
Digital resources are also quick and easy to update, which is vital to compliance training. Regulations change often, and it could be extremely costly for the organisation if you’re delivering out-of-date information.
Your resources will be readily available, regardless of your employees' locations, so you minimise the need for specific hardware, time restrictions, and the costs that come with arranging classroom training or purchasing new content.
4. Utilise Technology
Technology exists to make our lives easier. More people are turning to their devices to find the answers they need and, in turn, traditional L&D methods are failing to make an impact. It’s, therefore, important to factor in the model you will be using when implementing your corporate compliance training.
When your training materials can be used on a range of devices and on the web, this limits the need to buy specific PCs or software. It also allows your employees to have 24/7 access and a way for the organisation to have peace of mind knowing that everyone is receiving the same up-to-date information at any given time.
Learning on the go is becoming more preferred in the workplace and, therefore, incorporating this into your budget early on will save on future investment costs.
Your chosen model should also save you time and money from an admin perspective. Consider the reporting features it includes, and if this meets the organisation’s requirements when it comes to testing and feedback.
Creating corporate compliance training on a budget doesn’t mean you have to compromise its impact or effectiveness. Use our tips above to ensure your budget is best spent so you can focus your time and efforts on creating effective training materials that really make a difference.
