Compliance is increasingly complex.
Today, businesses face a web of overlapping compliance requirements that impact every facet of operations.
And it’s not only leadership who holds responsibility for compliance. Employees and contractors also have a significant role in keeping your organization compliant.
As a result, compliance training is more critical than ever.
Whether your team is fully remote, hybrid, or in-office, understanding compliance training will help you build a resilient and trustworthy organization.
This guide will explore the key components of a successful compliance training program and equip you to design one that works for your team.
Table of Contents
What is compliance training?
The goal of compliance training is to ensure that all employees understand and adhere to the standards governing their work.
Compliance training educates employees on the laws, regulations and internal policies relevant to their roles.
It’s about equipping your workforce with the knowledge and skills necessary to adhere to these standards, minimizing the risk of legal and reputational damage.
Compliance training can cover a wide range of topics, from data privacy to cybersecurity, health and safety, workplace harassment and ethical conduct.
Your organization’s specific situation will require a unique training puzzle.
However, the goal of compliance training is always the same: to ensure that all employees understand and adhere to the legal and ethical standards that govern their work, reducing the risk of non-compliance and the associated penalties.
Why is compliance training important?
Fundamentally, compliance is about following the rules and avoiding legal problems.
But it’s not just a regulatory requirement. Compliance is a strategic tool that helps businesses mitigate risks, foster a positive work environment, protect their reputation and continually improve bottom-line results.
Compliance training is essential for several reasons:
- Risk mitigation: Proper training helps avoid legal action, financial penalties, business interruption and reputation damage.
- Legal obligations: Many regulations require that businesses provide specific training to employees.
- Workplace safety and ethics: Training helps create a safer, healthier and fairer work environment, leading to higher employee satisfaction and reduced turnover.
- Operational efficiency: Employees who understand compliance requirements can work more efficiently and avoid practices that could lead to costly disruptions.
The benefits of compliance training aren’t confined to one corner of your organization. They apply to any nook or cranny where compliance matters for business continuity, employee well-being, customer confidence or regulatory standing.
Five (+3) types of compliance training
1. Regulatory compliance training
This training covers laws and regulations specific to your industry. Financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and labor hire are all examples of industries with strong compliance legislation.
It also covers general regulations that apply to all businesses. For example, consumer protection, advertising, tax laws, disclosures and labor laws apply to everyone – although they differ by region.
Regulatory compliance training should be a baseline standard for all employees.
Training topics include: Industry-specific legislation, region-specific general regulations and role-specific compliance requirements.
2. HR compliance training
All employees, not only those in leadership positions, should undergo a tailored HR compliance training program. This ensures that your organization complies with employment laws and manages employee-related concerns correctly.
It aims to create a fair, safe and legal working environment. It also minimizes the risk of legal action brought by employees who were the victims of unfair, unacceptable or biased treatment.
Training topics include: Workplace discrimination, harassment prevention, wage and hour laws, employee rights and benefits administration.
3. Data compliance training
Also called cybersecurity compliance training, this centers on the proper handling, storage, and protection of data.
Depending on your region, industry and operating model, your employees might be required to meet legal standards like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA or ISO 21007. They might also (or alternatively) need to meet SOC 2 compliance or another voluntary standard.
Training topics include: Data privacy, cybersecurity, data protection protocols, and best practices for managing personal and sensitive information.
4. Health and safety compliance training
Regular training maintains compliance with health and safety regulations. More importantly, it helps employees feel safe at work.
There is a lot to cover in health and safety training: general practices, hazard and risk assessment, fire safety, first aid and evacuation procedures, for starters. Then there are workplace-specific health and safety requirements. These become denser in hazardous industries like construction, mining, manufacturing or transport.
Training topics include: Occupational safety, emergency response, hazard communication, ergonomics, protective equipment, fire safety and workplace-specific requirements.
5. Ethics and Code of Conduct training
Integrity is essential for modern businesses. Ethics training emphasizes the importance of upholding organizational values and demonstrating responsible practices in everything your people do.
Tailor your ethics compliance training to cover the company’s code of ethics, relevant laws and regulations, and the potential consequences of unethical behavior. Including practical exercises to help employees make good decisions is also a good idea.
Training topics include: Conflicts of interest, confidentiality, whistleblower policies and corporate social responsibility.
These five areas are the core of compliance training. They’re a good start to upskill your employees and cover your organization against common compliance issues.
Depending on your structure, stakeholder expectations and specific requirements, you might also need to include niche topics in your compliance training program.
6. Environmental compliance training
Focuses on a company’s adherence to environmental laws and regulations, aiming to minimize its ecological footprint.
Training topics include: Waste management, pollution control, sustainable practices and environmental reporting.
7. Financial compliance training
Ensures that employees are aware of financial regulations and standards, which are particularly important in sectors like banking, insurance, and accounting.
Training topics include: Anti-money laundering (AML), fraud prevention, insider trading and financial reporting.
8. Trade compliance training
Focuses on compliance with international trade laws and regulations, crucial for businesses engaged in import/export activities.
Training topics include: Customs regulations, export controls, sanctions and trade agreements.
How to create an effective compliance training program
As the compliance landscape becomes more complex, creating an effective training program requires a thoughtful approach.
So, what does it take to create an effective compliance training program that meets legal requirements and fosters a culture of accountability?
There are five key steps.
1. Evaluate your needs
Determine the specific laws, regulations, and industry standards that apply to your organization. These will outline the broad shape of your compliance training requirements.
Next, clearly outline what employees should know and be able to do after completing the training. Determine who needs training based on their roles and responsibilities, and what competence looks like for each employee profile.
If possible, now is a good time to identify compliance gaps. Establishing a benchmark for compliance helps to understand whether your training is working.
Time Doctor’s comprehensive workforce analytics can help here. Our platform includes compliance-friendly features like detailed performance insights, real-time monitoring, accurate time tracking, and website application usage reports.
All these tools provide a clear picture of workforce activity so you can identify and solve compliance issues.
2. Align with business objectives
Compliance is a strategic tool as much as a legal requirement. Aligning compliance training with broader organizational goals will increase the chances of buy-in, enhance the relevance for employees, and focus training on specific areas that your organization needs to strengthen.
In short, it will create a positive link between compliance and performance.
3. Develop role-based training
Different roles or teams tend to have distinct compliance requirements.
Tailoring training content ensures that employees receive information that’s relevant to their role.
To maximize engagement and effectiveness, go one step further. Make your compliance training truly bespoke:
- Offer a range of delivery methods (e.g. online, in-person or self-guided)
- Create activities, handouts and interactive activities
- Ask people to role-play or answer questions
Depending on your organization’s compliance requirements, building compliance into performance goals might be worthwhile.
4. Make compliance training continuous
The landscape is evolving rapidly. Compliance is an ongoing process. Whether or not compliance training is a core job requirement, it’s important to stay updated.
Embedding compliance into daily routines will reinforce best practices. This includes everything from manager feedback to project management templates, compliance incident updates and visible compliance tracking.
Offer periodic refresher courses to keep your team informed about new regulations. Even if nothing has changed in the regulations, there is always more to learn about compliance.
5. Monitor outcomes and improve
It’s crucial to measure the effect (and effectiveness) of your compliance training.
To assess the immediate impact, create pre- and post-training assessments. These will tell you whether the training is sinking in.
Over a longer period, track the key indicators from step 1 to understand whether compliance is improving, stagnating or declining.
And remember: compliance is continuous. Raise the benchmarks with every review to ensure your organization is striving for continuous improvement in all areas.
More tips for effective compliance training
- Make it relevant: Connect compliance topics to employees’ daily work responsibilities.
- Use clear and concise language: Avoid jargon and technical terms that may confuse employees.
- Provide practical guidance: Offer actionable steps employees can take to comply with regulations.
- Encourage questions: Create an environment where employees feel comfortable asking questions.
- Offer ongoing support: Provide resources for employees to access after the training.
Overcoming compliance training challenges
In our experience, compliance training is one area where organizational leaders, managers and employees always see eye-to-eye.
Compliance is everyone’s business. Partly because the penalties for non-compliance affect everyone, and partly because “compliance” is synonymous with “the right thing to do.”
However, there are still challenges to implementing effective compliance training.
Here’s how to deal with barriers and pushback.
Disengaged employees
Compliance training doesn’t need to be tedious. Address the risk of disengagement by making training sessions more engaging and relevant to their daily work.
Use real-world scenarios, interactive elements and motivational incentives to increase engagement.
Keeping content updated
Regulations and best practices are constantly changing. It’s often difficult to stay updated.
This is where a compliance team – or at least dedicated compliance champions – makes a big difference.
Their remit is to review and update training materials to reflect the latest regulations and industry standards.
Resource allocation
Developing and delivering compliance training can be costly, both in direct costs and employee hours.
View it as an investment in your organization’s future. Maintaining workforce compliance means a better reputation, more business opportunities and higher productivity.
You can also lean on the costs of non-compliance to illustrate the importance of training. For example, GDPR compliance violations can attract fines of up to 2% of annual global turnover or $10.8 million (€10 million).
Measuring effectiveness
Assessments and surveys are useful for gauging your employees’ response to compliance training. Tracking this data helps you understand whether the structure, tone or content needs to change.
As for the outcomes of compliance training, that’s where workforce analytics tools like Time Doctor become invaluable.
Time Doctor provides real-time performance data and detailed reports that measure the effectiveness of compliance training. You can deep dive into the data to see where people spend their time, how behavior changes after compliance training, and which areas still need attention.
Plus, because it integrates seamlessly with 60+ business apps, you’ll get an end-to-end view across your projects and teams.
This enables close tracking of risk areas like data compliance, employee well-being, labor law compliance and ethical practices.
Compliance is just one area where Time Doctor provides deep insights to improve your team’s effectiveness.
Explore the full feature suite on our website or learn more about compliance and security at Time Doctor.
Liam Martin is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of Time Doctor, Staff.com, and the Running Remote Conference, and author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, “Running Remote.” He advocates for remote work and helps businesses optimize their remote teams.
