Building a Culture of Compliance: Educate
Main Contributor: Meghan Sundquist, Compliance Associate
Enhancing Your Skills
In our last blog post, our CEO, Liz Cope, discussed some skills which you as a compliance leader can use to foster a robust compliance culture in your firm. In this post, we’ll explore in more detail how to develop education within your firm.
It is important to note that knowledge does not equal skill, though it is an important component. Becoming a skillful educator benefits not only your firm’s employees, but it also improves your understanding of the material as well as your communication skills.
Your Foundation Matters
While delivering the information and checking the box are important (required, actually), one of the best ways to create a culture of compliance and decrease the number of violations is to aim for your staff to retain the information. Let’s look at a few tips to set the foundation for you as an educator.
1. Know your colleagues, not just their names
Professional relationship building can go a long way in creating trust between you as the compliance professional and other employees of the firm. It can create a safe space for employees to report potential violations as well as ask questions if they are unsure about something. It can also help with the “vibes” when annual training comes around. If there is animosity or tension, retention can go out the window. Care about the people you work with!
2. Let confidence and humility work together
This means you prepare and practice, so you present well. It also means you are open to questions and feedback. Provide time between sections to take questions; which leads to our next tip below.
3. Don’t be afraid of questions
Do your research, be prepared, and be honest if you don’t know the answer. If it’s appropriate, research the question live. If not, be sure to follow up with everyone after you’ve done your best to find the answer. Perhaps one of the greatest pitfalls of an educator is to be afraid of saying “I don’t know, let me look.” Don’t be! Honesty goes a long way.
Training Quality Matters
Now that we’ve established your foundation as an educator, let’s discuss some practical training ideas.
1. Have a hook
Sometimes called “an invitation,” a hook is something designed to catch an audience’s interest. When dealing with something like regulatory dos and don’ts, capturing attention is critical. Your hook can be anything from a random fact to a trivia-with-a-prize question. Know your colleagues. Maybe there is a trivia question a few people will know the answer to and be able to showcase their knowledge. Get creative!
2. Ask lots of questions
While you should be prepared to take questions, you should also engage your audience with interactive questions. Even if someone answers incorrectly, remember to stay positive. It’s ok to give some hints!
3. Use case studies
This is something mentioned as a great tool in our last article. You could come up with some case studies of the various topics you are training on and have employees break into groups to work through them. Need to discuss email content? Use some sample emails from your review with redacted names or create emails with similar issues. While you could choose actual incidents from the firm, be sure the person involved is comfortable with having their situation put in the spotlight. By using the study as a baseline, you are giving the audience something tangible to connect the concepts to which can significantly improve retention.
4. Implement hands on training throughout the year
This is a spin-off from the point above and an idea that our CEO, Liz, also highlights in our last article. With exposure and practice throughout the year, employees must recall information from the training rather than let it settle in a dusty corner of their brain. A great example is having your IT provider assist in pushing out fake phishing emails. You could also amp this up with tabletop drills to test your BCP.
5. Know when to delegate
Sometimes, it may be appropriate to delegate this responsibility to a qualified person or third party. It may also be permissible to ask employees to present on certain portions. Maybe you’ve got an advisor who knows all the private fund requirements by heart because she’s been working with them her whole career. If you need to do some training on those for the firm, let her take the lead. You can always review the teaching materials beforehand, but this could be a great way to elevate the employees at your firm while also letting someone else help bear the training load.
6. Practice presenting; Facilitate feedback.
Find a course or someone who can coach you. Get feedback from employees (live feedback, email check-ins, or a good ole survey). Practice with kids in mind! Break down the fundamental information enough to where a 10-year-old or a 16-year-old could understand it. If this is challenging, safe use of approved LLMs could also provide assistance, depending on your firm’s policy.
Conclusion
Reading off PowerPoint and checking the box is better than doing absolutely no training at all. If this is where you’re at, then you’re getting the work done, and that’s amazing! The ideas above are simply tips you can implement to take your firm’s education to another level where possible. While the proverb “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink” holds true, there are ways to help improve the chance of retention and engage your firm’s employees. Build professional relationships, ask questions, and use your resources! Integrate practical case studies, support your colleagues, and practice explaining complex concepts. It may take some extra prep time, but eventually, these skills can become easier. And if you’re ever in a situation where you need to delegate to a third party, reach out to SCS to see if annual training is part of your package. We’d love to help!
