Compliance training campaigns: a step-by-step guide

Picture this: it's annual conflict of interest disclosure time. Your questions are ready, the disclosure platform is prepped, and auto-reminders are set. Now all you need to do is train your employees on COIs and how to disclose them. 

Before you schedule your annual e-learning course, hear me out: this is an easy way to deliver content, but certainly not the most effective way to train your employees.

There’s a much better solution. 💡

Enter: Compliance Training Campaigns. ✨

Campaigns are an employee-centric approach to training, which has many benefits. Here are 3 big reasons companies take this approach: 

1. Knowledge retention: Campaign-style training provides ongoing opportunities to reinforce learning through multiple modes. And because you’re not overloading them with all the details at once, your people have time to digest information between bites. That way, they can naturally build on what they’ve already learned, making it stick.
2. Cost effective: No need to go buy something new—leverage your existing resources and technology. And because messages are short and to the point, training takes less of your employee’s time. 
3. Tone at all levels: By involving leaders throughout the organization, your employees will hear key compliance concepts from peers, direct managers, and senior leaders—not just the compliance team—reinforcing that compliance is part of your culture.

If you want to explore these benefits in greater detail, read about microbursts here. But if you’re ready to see what this looks like in practice, then let’s do this!

Back to your annual COI disclosure … 📝

Start by giving your site leaders a heads-up of what’s to come so they're fully prepared to disseminate the message on your behalf and answer any questions from their team as they come. 

Then, identify the communication methods that work best for the employee population you need to train, and use these tools to get your message out. Here’s an example of what your campaign might look like using Broadcat materials (of course, you can always use your own):

Week 1: Introduce the idea

By starting off high-level, this will help your employees understand general concepts without overwhelming them with a ton of new information.

• Email If it’s disclosed it can be managed to explain what conflicts are and why it’s in their best interest to disclose them.
• Deploy Conflicts: Simple definition #1 on computer monitors or digital displays in break rooms.

Week 2: Get leaders involved

Now that people have had a moment to think about this concept, get your managers involved to build on what employees have learned. This opens the door to dialog so people can ask questions and discuss real-world scenarios.

• Ask leaders to talk through different types of COIs with their teams and what situations they’re most likely to face in their role using our Conflicts of Interest infographic and bundled talking points.

Weeks 3 & 4: Connect to resources

Continue the conversation and give your employees a direct line to your team—this way they’ll know who to reach out to with questions. Now is the time to train your managers and HR so they're familiar with the process and supporting resources. This will ease any anxieties they might have about their responsibilities.

• Use your company’s collaboration or social app to post the Conflicts - do any of these apply to you? video.
• Host a lunch-and-learn with the Conflicts, Plain & Simple module.
• Eliminate the uncertainty of disclosing by showing them exactly what happens when they report a conflict with our What happens when I made a disclosure infographic.
• Train people managers on what to look for and how to manage COIs on their team with the How to manage conflicts of interest mini-module.
• Train HR on how to review disclosed COIs by giving them the Assessing Conflicts of Interest decision tree. (Bonus points for embedding this guidance into your review process!)

Weeks 5 through 8: Reinforce the message

It’s disclosure time! Keep the issue top of mind without sending a ton of reminder emails, and encourage your people to disclose their interests.

• Display awareness materials, like Disclose it on digital display boards to remind people of the pending deadline to disclose.
• Frame up the process by adding a short video recap, like the If it’s disclosed it can be managed video, to your disclosure tool, which recaps and cements what you’ve already shared about the importance of disclosure.

Looking forward: Periodic reminders

Conflicts can pop up at any time, so make sure to follow up throughout the year with quick, casual reminders.

• Add updates and reminders to newsletter blurbs
• Send out mid-year reminder emails
• Include COI email signatures in your daily communications 

And just like that, you’ve completed your very first compliance training campaign! All that’s left to do is assess the effectiveness of your campaign and identify areas for improvement. For pointers on what to measure, check out our blog on key metrics to prove your training is working. 

Wanna learn more about using Broadcat’s materials to create your own communications campaign? Let’s connect! Email me at brianna@thebroadcat.com.