Customer Support
Keeping up with Compliance
One of the trickiest things about compliance training is keeping up with changing compliance laws, rules, and regulations. You can create a great compliance course, assign it to your learners or set a date for training, and a month later, it needs to be updated. This can feel like an endless, overwhelming cycle. To help, here are some practical tips for managing the ever-changing compliance world.
Make a plan. In compliance training, change is a given. Since you know it is coming, build change into your plans. Make a plan to update training regularly. Have processes in place and resources set aside so you aren’t repeatedly scrambling for time or budget. Identify a mechanism to get information out quickly (for example, an email or an alert in the LMS) if something critical comes up between scheduled training updates.
Make “change” a big idea in training. “The world of compliance is ever-evolving” is a fundamental concept that is important for learners to understand. Providing learners with big ideas like this equips them with a framework around which they can learn in a coherent way. Make “change” a theme in your compliance training and revisit it periodically. This may help learners better understand and appreciate the importance of engaging in regular compliance training.
Be proactive. To avoid surprises and the scrambling that inevitably results, block time on your calendar every week or two to scan HUD, EEOC or state agency websites for important compliance news. Set up a Google alert, or something similar. Subscribe to key email lists and newsletters. Sorting through the information takes time, but planning it into your schedule and leveraging technology will make it a more manageable task.
Retain an expert. If you have the resources, retaining an expert such as a law firm for legal compliance or a CPA for compliance with the tax code is very useful. Work with them to identify priority issues so you aren’t overwhelmed with information you may not need. Have them create short summaries of why the change in law, rule, or regulation or other information is important to your business specifically.
As a trainer, your work is never done. This is one of the most challenging aspects of your job, but it can also one of the most invigorating. Actively managing the changing world of compliance can help you be ready for whatever the compliance world throws your way.
