Compliance Plan Framework

Hi Ashwin,

Are you looking to develop a series of e-learning courses on compliance for your organization? Or are you actually developing your internal compliance strategy? Either way, I think this will depend a lot on the industry you're working in. If you could be more specific, it may be easier for people to jump in and help you out!

Hi Allison,

Thanks for reaching out. I work for a hospital. I would like to come up with an internal compliance strategy for the organization. Right now, am in the process of reaching out to important stakeholders to identify what are the various compliance training needs of their respective department and how it affects the employees in the organization. It would be great if I can get some guidance on what is the best way to proceed with this?

Thanks

Ash

Hmm, that's a good question! I've never been in that position, so unfortunately I'm not sure what to recommend, but hopefully someone in the community will be able to guide you.

Hi Ashwin,

Great, if complex, topic.   Here are a couple of random thoughts in no particular order...

• Remember that "compliance" isn't always binary. For example, sometimes there will be an actual regulation/legality involved with certain trainings, while other times the powers that be simply think it's a good idea to have folks take/retake things. So develop a scale for your compliance analysis that includes why something is being tagged as a compliance need.
• It's doubtful you will be 100% compliant on everything 100% of the time. So consider a way to prioritize the needs so you can apply the proper focus.  Is there a monetary penalty involved? Does it directly impact life/safety? etc. Developing this type of scale also paves the way for a tiered approach to compliance... ie "You must take these 2 courses and you should take 1 or more of these."
• Strongly consider a compliance training calendar approach. Some organizations find a quarterly model works well with Q1 focusing on a few particular courses, Q2 focusing on a few others, etc.   Publish this calendar in advance as it helps build and support the compliance culture.
• Certainly put an escalation strategy in place for when folks do not meet their compliance goals. This requires steadfast buy-in at the highest levels. Again let folks know that you are not just training to train, but that the compliance courses offered have been narrowed down to the most essential and are required.... and how they will be held accountable.
• Explore alternatives to just re-taking compliance courses year over year. Often times auditors/regulators have more latitude than you may think and options like "test out" and the like are palatable alternatives.
• When developing compliance training, modularity is a  huge key. Try and keep the courseware modular enough that as certain rules/specifics change you can simply update those pieces and not the entire course or complex scenarios.
• Supplemental/reference materials are great.  Keep the courses streamlined to the red flags and required content, and make liberal use of supplemental (ie optional) materials to satisfy SME concerns while still respecting user's time and learning overload.

Sure there is a lot more other folks here can share, but hopefully these rambles will help get you started.

Good luck!

Thank you very much, Bob! That really helped to kick-start my brain :)

I especially like the Tiered approach. I will see how I can customize it for our Compliance learning needs here.

Cheers!

Ash