Compliance is the one thing a lot of companies fear yet the same thing enhances overall safety in the work environment. For you to keep your company in line with current laws and regulations, it’s imperative that you provide your staff with compliance training. As a result, they’ll have the ability to spot potential problems and know the correct way to handle them.
Before going into the specifics about the value of training, you should understand the consequences of non-compliancy. For whatever reason, some companies do not take compliance seriously, that is until they get caught. Then, they realize just how impactful their mistake was. While some of these companies recover, others don’t, meaning they actually fold.
Consequence of non-compliance
One key factor to keep in mind is non-compliance is not only damaging to your business, but it’s against the law. Another critical thing to remember is because compliance laws and regulations change, it’s vital that you stay on top of current requirements. In other words, your business might have been compliant in 2016, but now in 2019, it’s not. Thanks to training, there’s no excuse to fall behind and end up paying the costly consequences.
Following are just a few examples of areas where your company might not be compliant.
Hiring practices
Especially with discrimination, your HR Director and other leaders who hire need to understand the rules to follow. As a prime example, there are acceptable and unacceptable questions to ask job candidates. This becomes somewhat tricky considering potential employees need to meet a minimum age requirement, possess specific skills, have the ability to perform certain tasks, and so on.
The person hiring needs to gather critical information without breaking the law. By posing the wrong questions, there’s an excellent chance of someone filing a lawsuit against your organization. Again, thanks to compliance training for 2019, the members of your staff have all the needed guidelines to hire the right people while staying compliant.
Wages
Another potential problem area has to do with paying your employees the correct amount for the work performed. If you have workers who put in approved overtime yet you fail to pay them, you become non-compliant. Not only does that put your company at risk for a lawsuit but the state could also penalize you.
Along with paying your employees the correct amount of wages, you must pay them on time. Whatever schedule you set up for your business, you need to follow. If you have a payroll schedule for the 1st and 15th of the month, you can’t hand out paychecks on the 5th and 20th. For this, you need to provide your HR Director and Payroll Manager with the appropriate training.
Licensing
Depending on your type of business, you must maintain specific licenses. As an example, a convenience store owner needs licenses to sell alcohol, tobacco products, and lottery tickets, along with the standard business and health licensing. The fact is without obtaining and posting your licensed credentials, you could have your operation shut down.
Work environment safety
Without question, workplace safety is one of the most significant areas where companies fail to stay compliant. For every industry, there are set safety standards. By failing to meet them, especially if a worker sustains an injury, you could end up paying out tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation, perhaps even more.
When it comes to workplace safety, there are multiple things to consider, including machinery, processes, technologies, and so on. For the sake of compliance, you need a skilled Compliance Manager onboard – someone who knows the current laws and regulations and enforces them.
Just a few of this person’s responsibilities include assessing all security measures, identifying potential threats and risks, and determining the likelihood of an accident. Your Compliance Manager plays a vital role within your organization, ensuring the safety and security of all personnel.
Data security
This too is another significant area to focus on considering the high number of breaches, identity theft, and even holding companies for ransom. You need a leader who has both experience and training to protect the integrity of your entire IT system. Failing to stay compliant could cost you in several ways.
For one thing, you could face a civil penalty, which typically covers cases of wrongful neglect. There’s also the risk of a criminal penalty if someone discloses proprietary information, whether intentionally or unintentionally. If your business is healthcare, HIPPA could also hit you with a substantial fine.
Failing to meet even one compliance law or regulation could have substantial consequences. Along with putting your employees at risk, whether an accident or by sharing personal information, this could permanently damage your company’s reputation. After all, customers want to do business with an organization of high integrity and honesty.
As stated in a Forbes publication, “A professional compliance officer understands the various nuances that can ultimately protect your company from problems and save your company’s bottom line and reputation.” This is why having an experienced and knowledgeable Compliance Manager on your staff is critical.
Key regulatory compliance acts
Compliance laws and regulations affect companies of all sizes and industries. Regardless of the type of business you have, it’s imperative that you provide not only people of authority but also all your employees with the necessary compliance training for 2019.
With compliance, you have a bona fide method for protecting your company, employees, and even your customers. Although there are multiple players when it comes to regulatory compliance, three, in particular, stand out.
HIPPA
As the acronym for the “Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act” established in 1996, this affects any business that deals with personal health records or health information, including doctor’s offices, clinics, hospitals, laboratories, pharmacies, psychology firms, nursing and assisted living homes, and dentists.
HIPPA protects a patient’s personal and medical information. Only after giving authorization can a healthcare professional or facility release these details.
SOX
SOX, which stands for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, is a federal law that protects businesses from accounting and corporate scandals. According to this compliance law, organizations must handle things in a specific way such as financial reporting, auditing, and corporate governance.
PCI
PCI, or the “Payment Card Industry,” protects credit card information. All the major players, including MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and American Express, must follow the data security standards as part of this Act in an effort to reduce credit card theft and fraud.
As you can see, compliance stretches across all areas of an organization, from safety to patient information to credit card processing, and more. If your company doesn’t follow these and other compliance laws and regulations, you can anticipate a severe punishment that ranges from a financial penalty to actual jail time. Just one example, failing to stay compliant with SOX could result in a $10 million fine or more, as well as up to 30 years in jail.
Instead of putting your company, employees, and customers at risk, take advantage of a vast library of online training courses. Updated to correspond with current laws and regulations, this provides an excellent opportunity to stay compliant throughout your organization.
Current compliance training trends
With so many resources at your disposal, there’s no reason for your company to have any non-compliant issues. Especially as the digital footprint becomes more prominent in companies of all types and sizes, it’s essential that you gain insight into current compliance training trends.
Self-learning
For starters, a lot of employees prefer to take control of their learning. With advanced yet easy-to-use technology, you can offer your staff members a host of training opportunities, for both business and personal growth. Your L&D Manager would take the lead, but with overwhelming demand, an online course streamlines compliance training.
In other words, you can provide your employees with courses they can take at home yet at the same time, have your L&D Manager organize group training sessions. That combination ensures that everyone stays up-to-date on compliance requirements.
By providing your employees with training, you not only educate them but also enhance overall morale. To them, this shows that you’re willing to invest in them as a viable member of your organization in helping them gain more knowledge. In turn, this positively affects dedication and production.
Immediate access
Standard training often takes weeks to organize, whereas online courses are on-demand. For example, if an employee informs a department lead about a compliance problem having to do with machine guarding, you could give that manager immediate access to several appropriate courses. As a result, that person could take quick action to avoid a potential disaster.
In the meantime, your L&D Manager could organize group training to address the issue among the entire team, so it has a better understanding of things to look for, whom to report to, and the correct compliance action to take.
When utilizing the right source, you can select among thousands of related topics. Along with immediate access, experts develop and often present these online training courses, all affordably priced. Ultimately, you prevent a serious problem and provide ongoing education about additional compliance issues that might arise.
What that means is that you have an instant and long-term solution for keeping your company compliant. Again, the manager can apply the newfound knowledge immediately while your L&D Manager brings the issue before a large group as a way of spearheading future problems.
Mobile-friendly
Another hot trend for compliance training involves mobile access. Having the opportunity to complete courses via a smartphone or tablet has definite benefits. For instance, staff members who have a long bus, train, or subway commute could complete training on their way to work or back home.
Another consideration is that because many are glued to their mobile devices, you’ll discover that your employees are more apt to complete courses if they can do so using their smartphone or tablet. That’s not to say there’s no need for training via computer, just that mobile-friendly courses expand the opportunity to keep your company compliant.
Both digital and mobile content and delivery are vital components of a successful training program in 2019. As quoted in a 2018 LinkedIn study, “Delivering your training on multiple platforms, such as classroom, mobile, and on-demand, can help eliminate the time crunch for busy employees.”
Planning compliance training
Even with online courses, it’s imperative that you have a plan in place. One of the many benefits of e-learning is that your staff has immediate access to a wealth of information, whether in article, podcast, or video format. However, the goal is to create a plan so that when something comes up, you have already established a systematic process.
For compliance training to work at its best, it must be engaging, effective, and immediately accessible. The goal in putting together a compliance training program is to cover all aspects of your organization to ensure they’re in line with current laws and regulations.
As part of your plan, you need to meet with all your department heads to identify potential risks. From there, your Compliance Manager can take the lead in reviewing and assessing everything to confirm any non-compliant issues. Obviously, a good training program requires input and action from your entire management team.
Keep in mind; you want compliance training to accomplish several specific goals. Beyond identifying possible risks, it needs to focus on trends, organization, and on meeting regulatory requirements. You want your program to appeal to your employees but also teach them about the critical nature of compliance and what non-compliance would mean to them and the company.
- Start by identifying the ongoing requirements and training goals for each department within your organization.
- Review current training for present-time needs to help identify any required changes.
- Evaluate your current training program to understand both strengths and weaknesses. With that, you’ll have a clearer insight into what your new program needs to address.
- Identify and then implement changes, making sure they meet not only current laws and regulations but also department and corporate policies.
- Advise your employees about the training opportunities available. Along with specific compliance courses they need to take, provide them with a link to the training site where they can scroll through and identify additional topics of interest.
- Have your L&D Manager organize group training as needed. Even for this, you can utilize online courses. Along with making the process more convenient and cost-effective, this creates an environment where your staff can collaborate on keeping the company compliant.
Why Go1?
Due to the critical nature of staying compliant, you’ll have no problem finding different online platforms that provide training. However, not all have the same caliber of resources and the affordable prices that Go1 offers. As a leader among Learning Management System platforms, we have a vast range of compliance topics, regardless of your company size or industry.
