On June 1, the Department of Justice released an updated version of its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs.

The guidance outlines how the DOJ evaluates corporate compliance programs and provides useful insights for companies who want to design a comprehensive compliance program.

The whole thing is, of course, worth a read, but our favorite part? Check out section C on Training and Communications:

“Shorter, more targeted training.” Hooray!

Here at Rethink, we’ve been part of the push for shorter, more targeted training since we opened our doors in 2015. This is so important to us, in fact, that we built it into our compliance library and training development process. We’re thrilled to see the DOJ explicitly define this in its expectations.

So what does “shorter, more targeted” training look like? Let’s break it down:

Shorter

There’s a reason our clients are moving away from the 45-minute courses of compliance past: Longer training just isn’t effective. Effective learning is all about being clear, concise, and memorable.

The beauty of shorter training is that it forces you to focus on what employees actually need to know. For many compliance topics, a 5-10 minute learning experience does the trick — especially once an audience has some basic literacy in the subject. And, short videos and other communications provide additional opportunities to convey key concepts quickly throughout the year.

The beauty of shorter training is that it forces you to focus on what employees actually need to know.

(Shorter also means employees won’t groan when they see the enrollment email in their inbox.)

But developing short and effective compliance content requires a different approach from longer courses. Here’s how we do it at Rethink:

  • Before we sit down to develop a course or communication, we get to know a company’s culture and risks. What do employees already know? Where could they use reminders or more in-depth training? By starting with the audience, we can focus on the right messages and make a bigger impact.
  • We think like advertisers (and in fact, some of our team members come from advertising and content marketing backgrounds). Like advertising, compliance training is fundamentally a persuasion challenge. To persuade employees to change their behaviors, we first have to make them care, so we look for ways to forge a personal connection with employees and appeal to their hearts and minds.
  • We stick to plain language to help learners quickly grasp key concepts. This means distilling content down into attention-grabbing headings, short sentences, and bulleted lists. As we’re fond of saying: think like a lawyer, but talk like a human.
  • Where possible, we use visual media like videos and images to quickly convey information.

Learning to communicate this way takes a fundamental mindset shift, but it gets results. (And your employees will thank you for it.)

More Targeted

“Targeted” means in-depth, tailored customization — not just “one size fits all” messaging. It means creating something especially for your company, your risks, and your employees.

Despite what some of the big library providers will tell you, technology has made customization faster and easier than ever. When we set out to build the Rethink Compliance library, we knew customization had to be part of the design for our courses and communications from the get-go.

For example, our video wrappers are a great way to deliver a short, targeted message to your audience. We can swap out the video and images, adjust the colors and logo for your branding, and edit any of the text on the page for your specific audience and risks. And the good news is you don’t have to do the heavy lifting — your Content Concierge team will work with you to develop the right messages for your audience. You can even branch the experience for different roles in your company for truly targeted training.

Snapshot of our "Preventing Harassment" video wrapper course

Snapshot of our "Preventing Harassment" video wrapper course. Video wrappers are a quick and easy way to get a short, targeted message out to your audience.

Want to see shorter, more targeted compliance training in action? Sign up for a demo of the Rethink Compliance Library. We’d love to show you what we can do!