How to build a culture of compliance and mitigate risk

Having policies is one thing. Making sure employees understand them is something else. That’s where training comes in.

As we all know from personal experience, training can be boring. And if it puts you to sleep, it’s probably not effective. So how do you make training engaging? It’s certainly a challenge in the age of COVID-19.

One way is to keep the training relevant, modern, and well-made. We’ve all seen the cheesy training videos from another decade. It may be comical, but no one’s engaged or taking it seriously.

Similarly, low quality presentations and videos can be more distracting than educational. Most employees just do enough to get by.

Another way is to go above and beyond what’s required. Now more than ever, employers are training their staff on more than just standard training—things like respectful workplace training, bias training, bystander training, and more.

Lastly, you can increase engagement by testing employees on their training. But not all tests are created equal. Tests only incentivize learning when something is at stake, like failing the test, so it’s important to create questions with varying levels of difficulty. We’d also recommend limiting the number of test retakes or guesses per question.

Getting started

Most of us have opinions or judgments about our coworkers. It happens automatically. But when you’re starting an investigation, leave your preconceived notions at the door. They will only cloud your vision as you search for the truth.

A thorough investigation starts with the right questions. For example, using a funnel technique which goes from broad to more specific questions helps ensure you are consistent in how you investigate each complaint. Funnel techniques also help you understand context before focusing on the details of what happened.

Focus on policy violations

Focus on policy violations, not just legal violations. Issues arise all the time that your organization can’t get sued over, but they still need to be addressed. Maybe that one incident wasn’t technically harassment, but did it violate a policy?

Consider your organizational values. Did an employee’s actions promote or violate those values? If the latter, you may consider further training for that employee. As the saying goes “what you permit, you promote.”

Use video conferencing

Much of the world is now remote, but that doesn’t keep issues from arising. If anything, it makes investigations more challenging.

Interview in person if possible. If not, video conferencing can be helpful as you judge the credibility of witnesses. However, where confidentiality is essential to the integrity of an investigation, it can be particularly tricky in this remote world. During an interview, you may not know who’s outside of the camera lens or within earshot, or whether a party is recording the conversation. Therefore it’s important to set the expectation regarding such behavior in advance.

Remember to follow up

Maybe you addressed an employee’s complaint but never followed up with them. An employee is likely to think the compliant feel on deaf ears. Even if you’re unable to share specifics, people at least need to know their complaints were heard and addressed.

No one likes it when their employer plays favorites, especially when it comes to enforcing policies. If you put two similar incidents side-by-side, did you address them consistently? Do you have similar documentation for both employees? When policies and procedures are fairly applied it improves your organization’s legal defensibility.

Consistent enforcement is most important across roles or departments, not necessarily the entire organization. For example, arriving on time is essential for customer-facing roles, but it may not be necessary for an outcome-based role in marketing or finance. The key is having managers fairly enforce policies among their direct reports.

Here’s the thing. If you do everything above well but don’t have a system for managing your policies, creating a culture of compliance will still be hard.

Why? If policies aren’t organized, if there’s not a single source of truth, if multiple versions exist, how can you audit policies? How can you enforce your policies if employees can’t easily access them or if they’re referencing an outdated version?

In times like COVID-19 especially, when new information comes in fast and changes frequently, it’s important to have a system for storing, updating, disseminating, and tracking information.

That’s where PowerDMS comes in. Our policy and compliance management software is your single source of truth for all important documentation. It creates a living connection between your policies, accreditation, and training, so you have the documentation to back up your organization’s culture of compliance.

If you’re exploring purchasing a policy management solution check out our Buyer’s Guide to the Top Policy Management Tools.