A common buzz word in business today is “compliance.” What does it mean, though, and why should you care about it when it comes to your business? Well, if you didn’t know, it means conforming or adhering to a set of rules.
These rules include any federal, state, or local regulations, as well as your own company policies. You can read more about it on this page if you’re curious, since having a good understanding of this topic is the first step in understanding why it’s so important. When it comes to training your employees, you should prioritize it.
- It Can Boost Workplace Productivity
I know this one is a bit surprising, considering a lot of us think of any session way from work as hindering productivity. However, if you can stop any disagreements between co-workers before they start, you’ll find higher levels of work ethic and cooperation!
After all, teaching your employees about this includes topics about harassment in the workplace. Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people go through each day. We deserve to have a safe place when we go to our job, so feeling threatened is definitely not a good thing.
Creating a healthy work environment is critical in ensuring that everyone does their jobs properly, so that’s why I say it can increase those productivity levels. The one-time inconvenience is well worth it in the end!
- It Can Boost Your Reputation
Managing our public image can be a challenge of running a company or organization. What you may not know is that compliance training is one method of doing this in an indirect manner. What do I mean by this? Well, in simple terms, ensuring that you follow all of the laws and regulations for your industry helps inspire trust for customers.
Additionally, you are able to cultivate any values or morals that you want your organization to reflect on every level. Say for example you want to focus on going green and using environment practices. In a session, you might want to emphasize this to your workers and explain to them how they can live up to these standards in the short-term and the long-term.
Each day, all representatives of your business should strive to reflect these values. There are a few ways to do this in a training session. One of the first things is creating a code of conduct. You see, there are several groups that you want to start to perceive your organization as professional and legitimate. These are any customers, competitors, marketplace stakeholders, and your suppliers.
When you create a strong code and you and your employees follow it, it helps to construct a certain “personality” for your organization. While it isn’t literal, of course, it still can encourage higher levels of customer loyalty and even brand loyalty. At the end of the day, the end goal is improving sales figures!
- It Protects Your Organization
Thinking about the consequences that could come from poor compliance isn’t something we like to do, but it’s absolutely still worth touching upon. You see, if you don’t follow these rules, there are a lot of negative things that could happen. The reputation loss is just one facet of this.
The thing I think about first when it comes to this is legal reparations or litigations. You can find a few more details on these here: https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/compliance-definition/. If an employee, or even worse, a customer, is harassed at your business, for example, they might have legal grounds to sue. This will probably go poorly for you if you have not instated any risk management policies regarding compliance.
However, this isn’t all. You can also open yourself up to security risks. That might look like embezzling or other financial issues – poor handling of company funds or misuse of a credit card, to name just a few.
Cybersecurity is something else that might be breached if workers are not properly informed on protection regulations. A common instance of this happening is if work emails are being flooded with misleading or scam messages. If one suspicious link or attachment is clicked, it could lead to viruses, malware, or even spyware.
In general, one of the best forms of risk management is this sort of teaching session. Whatever method you decide to use, be that via a virtual program or a physical presentation, just choose the curriculum carefully. Inculcate the virtues you want to focus on into that core curriculum.
You could even have assessments that your employees need to finish after the classes are complete. Anything you can do to tell them that this is a very serious topic that should not be ignored or glazed over is a good idea to try. So, don’t wait, and develop your sessions as soon as you can.
