Dangers Of Not Having In-House Compliance Training
Creating an employee training program is a challenging endeavor, as is. It needs a lot of planning ahead and patience for the revisions that are to come until you get the desired result. It’s so tempting to hand the project over to another company and get it over with. However, not being able to communicate and overview the development process the way you would with an in-house team involves some risks.
When it comes to corporate compliance training, specifically, every detail matters. Although a mistake isn’t the end of the world, there isn’t always enough time for a do-over when a critical deadline is approaching. Before entrusting a third party with compliance training, keep in mind the following 7 things that might go wrong.
1. The Quality Isn’t Exactly What You Had Imagined
You did your research before choosing an eLearning vendor. They showed you samples of their work, and you were impressed. But the course they have delivered is below your expectations. It’s not what you asked for or what they promised. Why did this happen? Perhaps the team that created the course you saw was different from the one who created yours. They didn’t get your instructions right, or got suddenly too busy and missed a detail or two. You can’t really know.
Compliance is as important as a piece of training can be. The content should be engaging, and the course as a whole should be comprehensive. If the content is boring and repetitive, employees won’t engage with their training and won’t learn efficiently. But it’s even worse when essential info is missing. A course discussing workplace hazards, for example, must include several examples from your workplace, which is unique in its risks. Otherwise, your safety training will fall short in protecting employees.
2. The Training Doesn’t Resonate With Employees
Another issue with content that isn’t developed in house is that it might fail to resonate with employees. You see, no matter how well you explain your training needs or how detailed your brief is, an external collaborator still doesn’t know your staff or business culture. Company culture affects the tone of the training, and when the course developer is not familiar with yours, the result could be a flat, generic course.
The problem with generic content, even if it’s well-curated, is that it doesn’t provide context. Employees won’t be able to see how the training applies to them or why it matters. This is especially important for employee training that revolves around company culture and needs to demonstrate company-specific situations, like ethics training.
3. Company Information Is Leaked
To avoid ending up with a generic course, you’ll need to share information about internal policies and strategies with the eLearning vendor. This comes with the risk that sensitive company information will leak, with whatever consequences that might have.
A non-disclosure agreement can protect you from the intentional disclosure of confidential information. However, sensitive data can leak by accident if the company falls victim to a cyberattack. Not that a cyberattack couldn’t happen to you. But at least you can ensure your company has adequate online security measures in place to reduce that risk.
4. The Course Isn’t Delivered On Time
When working with an external team, it’s harder to ensure the course will be delivered on time. Maybe the content development team suffers from a lack of time management or an agile process. Maybe another client is giving them a hard time with their project. Mistakes and do-overs can also cause last-minute delays, even if you have been checking with the vendor regularly.
Deadlines, much like compliance itself, are not nice-to-have but mandatory, especially in regulatory compliance training. One reason for this is that new regulations can neither wait for you to finish training nor forgive non-compliance. If your employees don’t get their certifications until the designated deadline, you might face legal and financial consequences. Additionally, your employees will have to put their work aside to finish training, which is both stressful and counterproductive.
5. The Costs Spiral
You can’t make any discounts on the quality of compliance training. Therefore, you might need to ask for several rounds of revisions until you have a course that meets your requirements. Depending on your contract, you might have to pay for this extra time and work, even if you feel that you were clear regarding your expectations.
6. Communication Is A Struggle
Outsourcing might end up being a bigger headache than building in-house training. That’s because you will still have to overview the project to ensure the external L&D team is on schedule and that the course is being developed according to your instructions.
Communicating and collaborating with a remote team is always harder, especially if they’re in a different country. What’s more, an external partner has their own pace and procedures and possibly different work mentality. Different time zones and language barriers might create additional challenges, like delays in communications. And if the vendor doesn’t speak the same language as you, you’ll have to try twice as hard to give instructions they can understand.
7. Delays In Important Updates
When you’re not developing your own compliance training, you’re dependent on a third party for course updates too. This lack of flexibility can be a problem when employees need to get up to speed with a significant change in legislation or an internal policy of yours. Not having an L&D team of your own to handle urgent training needs, you can only hope your trusted eLearning vendor is not too occupied at the time.
Conclusion
If employee compliance is an integral part of your business, then it’s worth forming your own L&D team. Building in-house compliance training will allow for better communication with your team and control of the process. To make your team’s life easier, choose a robust training software. With multiple capabilities, like certification management and intuitive content creation tools, it helps you develop compliance online training that suits your needs and captivates employees every time.
