Why Outsourcing Your Compliance Training Might Be Risky
Outsourcing your compliance training is a common decision for organizations to make. In the right circumstances, outsourcing training can assist with cost reduction and also help employees to benefit from the expertise of a professional eLearning company. With that being said, there are some training programs that might be better off being developed in-house. Unfortunately, outsourcing compliance training is one such program.
It takes time and effort to create an effective employee training program, which is no secret. Preparation and patience are going to be necessary if you want to achieve the right results in the long run. Because of the efforts associated with developing an in-house compliance training program, many organizations think it’s best to outsource the task to a professional eLearning company. But there are actually a number of risks associated with not having an in-house compliance training team. Here are some of the top risks associated with not developing and offering your own in-house compliance training.
The Quality Isn’t Acceptable
When you hire a vendor to create an eLearning program for your company, you expect a certain level of quality. Moreover, when it comes to compliance training, quality is of the utmost importance. The content needs to be as engaging as possible, and extremely comprehensive. The truth is, many employees don’t exactly enjoy compliance training. Also, if the content created isn’t engaging and is repetitive, they’re not likely to retain any information and your training won’t be sufficient.
This is a true statement for any type of eLearning, but when it comes to compliance training, the effects of a poor-quality course can be quite detrimental. Let’s say, for example, you’re teaching a course on hazards within the workplace. If employees are unengaged and don’t retain any information, they could pose a serious risk to themselves and others.
It’s Overly Pricey
Because compliance training needs to be thorough and high-quality you really can’t compromise on any of the costs. There’s a good chance that you’ll need to send your eLearning course back for a number of revision rounds before it’s up to your expectations. If this happens costs can easily go out of control and you may end up going way over budget trying to develop the course properly.
Company Information is Compromised
When outsourcing your training and hiring company to create an eLearning course for you, you’re going to need to share some pretty critical information about internal policies and strategies. Beware, because this does come at the risk of trusting an external source with sensitive company information. The chances are that any eLearning vendor that you look into should be reliable and trustworthy, but anytime you have to share company policies and information it’s a calculated risk.
Of course, you can require an eLearning vendor to sign a non-disclosure agreement. But that only keeps you safe in the event of a purposeful leak. A data breach, for example, could cause company information to be leaked accidentally. This can be caused by a cyber attack that can’t ensure a third-party company is protected against. The less sensitive information you share with external sources, the less chance that information will get out.
Communication Issues
Yes, developing an in-house training program takes effort and time, it can be quite arduous and somewhat tedious. However, outsourcing your eLearning compliance program may be just as much trouble. When you aren’t directly in control of how the training material turns out and you have to rely on a third party to realize your vision, communication is paramount. As we mentioned before, compliance training is no place to cut corners or skip out on any details. Communicating and collaborating properly with a team developing your course that doesn’t work for your company is going to be a little bit tricky.
This is particularly true if you hire a remote team that may not even be in the same geographical location as you. You can’t always rely on other companies to follow the same policies and procedures that you do. They may have an entirely different work ethic or value set. Consider issues such as time zones, barriers with language, and any other challenges that could cause communication problems.
The Training Materials Have No Impact
Trusting a third-party company to develop a training course always runs the risk that they just don’t get it. It will be a serious disappointment if the expensive eLearning course that you outsourced doesn’t resonate with your employees. And, they don’t retain any information. Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how clearly you think you’ve communicated your needs, the development company just doesn’t understand what you’re looking for and can’t develop a course that’s going to have the impact you want.
The truth of the matter is that a third-party company probably won’t really understand your company culture. Culture is everything when developing a compliance course, so not developing it in-house is risky. Even if the course looks good and functions well, if it’s generic, it probably won’t resonate with employees because the context won’t be relevant. This is a particular consideration when you’re delving into compliance training that revolves around company culture. Any type of compliance that relies upon company-specific situations, for example, ethics training, should be developed in-house.
Employee compliance should be an integral part of any business’s day-to-day operations. This means that compliance training needs to resonate with employees and be clear, concise, enjoyable, and easy to understand. Outsourcing your compliance training to an external company can make this difficult to achieve. Yes, it takes time and effort to create a training program in-house, but in the long run. But, the benefits of that program will likely be worth it. At the end of the day, you and only you know how to create a compliance training program that’s going to be the most effective for your organization and your employees.