Chief Learning Officer - August 2007 - (Page 22)

learning solutions Compliance Training: Check the Box or Buckle Up? Jim Haudan and Rich Berens As new corporate laws spring up at a steady clip, it’s easy for companies to complete compliance training as quickly as possible, with little thought given to its intent. It’s up to learning leaders to ensure compliance isn’t a charade, but an important, behavior-changing process. A nurse sits at her computer to renew her certification. As she takes her test, the answer sheet lies next to her on the desk. When she hits “Submit,” her new certification is complete. She has complied. An employee goes through an intranet course in safety. When he’s done, the learning management system (LMS) tracks his participation. He might not have read a single word but, legally, he has completed the training. During a meeting, a senior executive apologizes for being distracted about compliance training. “I’ll just check these boxes while we’re talking,” he says. “I committed to get this completed.” What’s going on here? Is this how we define compliance today? Apparently, even at the senior level, sometimes we miss what compliance is all about. Yes, compliance laws are intended to instill behaviors that keep you and your company off a list, but does anybody really think compliance is anything more than that? What we have frequently adopted is an engagement charade (one company labels this outlier-mania). The game is to keep your name off the outlier list that shows you are out of compliance. How you do this has become a cat-and-mouse game that exhibits true entrepreneurial behavior but a total disconnect from the original intent. Humans can modify behavior quickly when we see the reasons for it. Yet, post-Enron, with the initiation of Sarbanes-Oxley, we seem to continue to separate the letter of the law from the spirit. What is our responsibility to appropriately change this? The Seat Belt Saga: Norms Do Change In an ideal world, we wouldn’t need compliance laws. Humans can modify behavior quickly when we see the compelling need for it. After all, it took less than a day to persuade us to remove our shoes in airport security lines after Richard Reid tried to use an explosive in his shoe to blow up an airplane in December 2001. Let’s look at another familiar example where compliance has taken hold: seat belt usage. Not long ago, few people wore seat belts regularly, but today, it’s clearly become the norm rather than the exception. Seat belts weren’t even offered in cars until the 1950s, and their use wasn’t required in any state until 1968. At first, cars were built to make an annoying noise if you didn’t buckle them, so people buckled the belts and sat on them. (Very much like checking compliance boxes!) People had tons of reasons not to follow the law: They were good drivers. Seat belts increased the cost of cars. Seat belts were uncomfortable. Seat belts wrinkled your clothes. And besides, if your car somehow became submerged in water, it would take longer to escape. How is that safe? So, what happened to make us a nation of (mostly) seat belt wearers? An overarching, multiyear communication and education campaign that not only changed the law to force us to comply but also got us to change our thinking. There were TV commercials. Signs were everywhere. There were slogans such as “Click It or Ticket.” We were constantly reaffirmed with the message that wearing seat belts is not just a really good idea — it’s the law. August 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 22 http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - August 2007

Chief Learning Officer - August 2007

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.