What do the Sentencing Guidelines say about training? & Three Questions with David Searle

Training is one area where the Sentencing Guidelines give us specific information about what’s expected for an effective program. Is your training program clear?  Does it effectively communicate the company standards?  Is everyone meeting these standards? Another important effective training issue is coverage. Who is receiving it?  Does it include remote employees? Does it include management, the board of directors, etc.?  The Guidelines specify “periodic” training but does not define this term.  What does it mean? How can an organization test to find out if it’s training is practical?  One way is to select a sample or focus group.  And we’ll discuss a few more.   The Upshot Keep your training effective, periodic and practical. Periodic doesn’t mean once and it’s done, it means periodic. Practical means testing to ensure that the program is working. And finally, use consistent and interesting methods to ensure effectiveness. Three Questions with David Searle, Chief Compliance Officer and Associate General Counsel at Bristow Group Read Full Transcript What do the Sentencing Guidelines say about training? Training is one area where the Sentencing Guidelines give us specific information about what's expected for an effective program. Training must be effective, periodic and practical. It must succeed in communicating the company's standards to the broadest possible audience. Terms like “clear, concise and interesting” are often applied to training programs that are developed to communicate these standards. Unfortunately, often the training is not “clear” and this can have serious consequences. For example, a few years ago we worked with an organization to develop its program on conflicts of interest. Interestingly, this company specifically allowed for and discussed the hiring of family members and close friends. This was a family-owned business and it would have been impossible to have a conflicts-of-interest policy that forbade nepotism. Indeed, the C.E.O.'s daughter was a General Manager, a well-known fact within the company. While working with this company we discovered that their “off the shelf” training procedures specifically stated that they could not hire family members no matter what. This was an obvious and unintended oversight. So, in the code of conduct training’s module on conflicts of interest there was a provision that directly conflicted with what the actual policy of the organization was. This sort of thing happens more frequently than you might imagine particularly with the proliferation of off-the-shelf, standardized-type training programs. Another common scenario is when you have a company that has been acquired, or one with several separate subsidiaries, one of its divisions may have policies, procedures, and documents that are in direct conflict with its other divisions. Clear communication...