Compliance Training — Why Bother?

No organization needs or wants legal problems. At a minimum, they're distracting to management and employees, harmful to the organization's reputation, and costly to deal with — even where the organization has done nothing wrong. Legal problems can lead to litigation, judgments, significant fines and penalties, prison terms for individuals, debarment from government contracting, and — as we've seen all too often in the last decade — an organization's total demise.

Plenty of legal problems originate at lower levels, where employees may act improperly out of ignorance, misunderstanding or a devil-may-care disrespect of the laws, regulations, rules and policies that govern their day-to-day job responsibilities. Many of these problems can be avoided — or at least mitigated — through employee training.

	It's the Law Until the late 1990s, compliance training was a priority only in heavily regulated industries and on issues considered "high-risk" because of past compliance failures. But today organizations in all industries face an ever-thickening legal/regulatory scheme covering a broad range of issues. There is little room "under the radar" for organizations whose employees don't know, understand and follow all applicable laws and regulations. Learn More
	It's Good for Employees By dedicating time and resources to train employees on applicable laws, regulations and policies, an organization communicates to employees that those laws and policies are important and that employees will be held responsible for understanding and following them. Training can thus help create better employees, instilling in them an appreciation of, and commitment to, the organization's ethics and compliance goals. Learn More
	Good Ethics Is Good Business Research indicates that an organization's overall commitment to ethics and compliance has economic and other payoffs. In one study, organizations with an explicit commitment to doing business ethically produced profit ratios at 18% higher than those without a similar commitment. In another study, organizations with a strong "ethical culture" — that is, those that effectively made "doing the right thing" a priority — had less than half as many incidents of financial and other misconduct as other organizations. Learn More