Consumers today have more awareness and interest in ethical business practices than ever before. Through modern communication, there is now easier access to information about how companies conduct business than ever before. And as people have become more exposed to this information, it has made it a critical piece of information as they determine where their brand loyalty lies and where to invest their money.
This new climate has led to a keen interest in business ethics and the creation of organizations that showcase and provide awards to those companies that a proving to be ethical leaders in their industries. Companies then highlight these achievements in their corporate communications and marketing materials because as these distinctions can now set a company apart from its competitors.
The Importance of Corporate Ethics Training
Ethics provide a standard of conduct and most companies, today, have a set of policies and procedures relating to its standard of conduct by employees. A training program that defines and explains these policies to your employees is essential. A comprehensive ethics training program will not only explicitly define those behaviors that are prohibited but will also explore the gray areas in which the behavior is not always easy to define.
Workers today are faced with many temptations. New regulations enforce federal and state guidelines for your company and employees, and compliance to these standards should always be maintained. But simply documenting and distributing your policies and procedures is not enough to ensure that every employee understands these standards and how to meet them. Comprehensive training provides a platform to learn about and discuss your policies and procedures to help see that these rules are followed at all times.
Outlining Your Ethics Training Program
The specific components of your ethics training program will be driven by the type of business you run, the industry in which you operate, and the types of situations that may arise for your employees. An effective program is based on strong ethics policy that each employee receives and acknowledges.
At a high level, course modules present and reinforce concepts that include:
Building and maintaining a respectful workplace
Protecting the information and resources of the company, its employees, and clients employees
Understanding an avoiding conflicts of interest
The proper management of company finances
Understanding and adhering to all laws and regulations governing the business
To underscore and ensure understanding of key points, it can be beneficial for the program to create scenarios of various ethical challenges that include:
Potential conflicts of interest
Financial reporting questions and dilemmas
Fair competition issues
Insider trading questions
The giving and receiving of gifts
Ethical engagement in political activities
The failure of employees to understand these important topics can lead to serious business and legal consequences. Preventing unethical business practices will not only help to create a good reputation but helps to safeguard the company from litigation. This is why ethics training is integral to the success of a business.
eLearning for Corporate Ethics Training
In recent years, as online technologies have continued to evolve, more and more companies are looking to online training or “eLearning” as a cornerstone approach to building their ethics training program.
Some of the benefits of leveraging eLearning for ethics training include:
Cost-Effectiveness
eLearning reduces, or even eliminates, many of the costs associated with in-person, classroom-based training, such as travel, venue fees, instructor fees, catering, and distributing printed training materials. And with eLearning, your employees can conduct their ethics training activities during breaks or after hours, thus eliminating any costs associated with pulling staff away from their job duties for training.
Convenience
eLearning allows your employees to perform their ethics training work at any time and from any place they choose, as long as they have an Internet connection. This level of convenience supports more comfortable learning environments and creates a better overall experience for users.
Self-Paced
One of the unfortunate aspects of classroom-based training is the fact that all students must be able to keep pace with the instructor, regardless of their learning style or ability to quickly grasp the material. With eLearning, your employees are able to learn at their own pace and can easily revisit difficult or important content multiple times before moving on to the next section.
Communication and Collaboration
Many eLearning platforms now offer tools to support communication among students and between students and instructors. These tools help to create a sense of community within your ethics training environment and streamline the collaboration and feedback collection process.
Measurement
With eLearning, your administrators can easily collect data around the engagement and success of your ethics training program. This data can then be analyzed and leveraged as you work to revise and improve your ethics training program over time.
LMS Portals for Your Ethics Training Program
LMS Portals provides a cloud-based platform that allows your organization to build your own branded eLearning portal for your ethics training program. Our system allows you to easily build own your own ethics training program outline and deliver your courses based on your own specific training needs, under your own corporate branding and within your own existing web infrastructure.
Contact us to discuss running your Corporate Ethics Training Program on your own branded eLearning portal.