ETHICS & COMPLIANCE: TRAINING AND AWARENESS
Debnath: Training and awareness are key features of an effective compliance programme. Why, in your opinion, are they so important?
Anthony: The key objective of a compliance programme is to promote adherence to laws and regulations. This cannot be achieved without all employees being aware of their roles and responsibilities, as well as the consequences of noncompliance. The most effective way to raise awareness within an organisation is regular, practical, tailored training to all employees. Increasing your employee’s knowledge of the law and regulations affecting their specific job role helps to protect them as well as the organisation from a variety of detrimental impacts such as personal fines, financial sanctions and loss of job, to name but a few. As well as promoting adherence to laws and regulations, effective compliance training has several other benefits including, first, protecting the reputation of the individual as well as the organisation, second, improving performance, profits and efficiencies, third, providing a safer workplace, and fourth, saving money, as the cost of noncompliance can be extraordinarily high with legal fees, penalties and fines, lost productivity and damaged reputation. All too often, time and effort are spent on developing the content of a programme, only for it to fall over when sufficient investment is not made in the subsequent roll-out. Therefore, training employees should be a fundamental part of a company’s compliance programme and form part of its overall compliance culture.
Apr-Jun 2020 Issue
Nokia Corporation
FTI Consulting
Mayer Brown