[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everyone. The Business Ethics Leadership alliance has questions and we have answers. I'm your host, Bill Coffin. Welcome to another Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast.
One of the best benefits of being a member of the Business Ethics Leadership alliance or bella, is that if you have any questions at all about ethics and compliance, you can submit them to Bella's concierge service and one of our internal experts will provide an answer and direct you to a helpful resource for more information.
Many of these requests speak to broad challenges facing Bella members and by extension, the wider ethics and compliance profession. That's why we're using this show to thematically respond to high level questions from the Bella community. And joining us once again to answer those questions is Bella chair Erica Salmon Byrne. Erica, thanks for answering more questions. It's great to have you on the show.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Oh, Bill, thanks for having me back. And thanks to the Bella community for continuing to ask these great questions so that you and I have a chance to chat about them.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: Well, our next question is a training question and it reads, how do I evaluate the effectiveness of my training program, especially with large audience online courses?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yep, it's a good one. And it is one of those perennial categories of questions that we get Bill around. Training effectiveness, training evaluation, all of these pieces. And fundamentally speaking, I think a lot of it comes back to just a certain sense of disquiet that so many of us have with large audience online training formats. Because it is far too easy with too many of those things to be over here, clicking with one hand and on your phone on the other. Right. They lend themselves so well to a multitasking environment. So the first thing I would say is really think about the length of the course you're asking people to go through and the engagement level that that material is going to provide to your audience. How tailored can you make it? You know, are there elements of the training where your learning management system allows you to let people skip around and go to the parts that interest them the most? For example, can you test out of certain sections of the training because you answer pre questions and demonstrate a facility with that information that allows you to move on to more complicated topics? Are there scenarios built into the training that are going to grab my attention? Is there a theme to those scenarios, right, like we all love watching serial shows, right, where the, you know, something happens to the same characters and so can you incorporate an element of that into your training? How much have you utilized adult learning research to make sure that people are getting information that I can actually use? Right. Those Are all things to really think through and ask yourself about your training plan. And we see this. You know, Bill, you and I had the pleasure earlier this year of talking about the updates to the Department of Justice's evaluation of corporate compliance programs guidance. And in that guidance, the department talks about this sort of growing acknowledgement that one size fits all, peanut butter style training is a thing of the past. Right. We need to be thinking about actually educating employees, not just training them. It's a different exercise. And we need to be thinking about getting them information that they can use as close as possible to the moment that they use it so that they actually hold on to the information. And all of that is leading to this really good groundswell of questions from the community around, okay, how do I do that? Right. What does it look like? And I would say the first thing you can do is you can put yourself in the seat of the learner. What is your training experience like? Particularly if it's that large audience format online training. How can I make it more engaging? How can I make it more interesting? How can I make it more impactful? How can I make it shorter? Can I do it in flights? Right. Little like chunks of training over the course of the year? What kind of behavior can I look to after the training is done to indicate that it's going to, that it's resonating with employees? Can I track how many questions I get on the topic? Can I track engagement with some of the policies and that sort of thing that I might be citing in the training? Can I track follow up questions that managers might be getting? Can I track if it's conflicts of interest, disclosure, training? Can I track how many more disclosures I'm getting? Right. What are the, what are the indications I can get from my program that some of the material that I covered in that training is landing with employees? But really putting yourself in that seat of the learner would be step number one.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Well, Erica, thank you so much for providing your perspective on today's subject. I know everybody in ethics economy really, really appreciates it.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: Oh, Bill, it's my pleasure. You know, training is one of those few places from a compliance program perspective where we touch every employee, no matter where they are at some point during the course of their journey across the organization.
And that really isn't the case for things like investigations or disclosures or things along those lines. Training is the place where, you know, we have this opportunity to create this relationship with our employee base and doing everything we can to make sure that they understand that we get what they do and that shows up in the learning we're asking them to take. You know, I will come back and talk about that topic till the cows come home. So I appreciate the Bella members that keep asking us these good questions so that we can continue to make compliance training something that employees actually look forward to taking.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: To learn more about Bella, please visit ethesphere.com Bella to request guest access to the member Resource Hub and to speak with the Bella Engagement Director. And if you have a question that you would like answered on Bella Asks, be sure to use the Bella Concierge service and we'll get to your question just as soon as we can. I'm Bill Coffin and this has been a special Bella Asks episode of the Ethicast. For more episodes, please Visit the Ethisphere YouTube
[email protected] ethisphere and if this is your first time enjoying the show, please make sure to like and subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Thanks so much for joining us and until next time, remember, strong ethics is good business.
