The 5 Cs of Anti-Fraud Training Success
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GUEST BLOGGER
Rupert Evill, CFE
Founder, Ethics Insight
Anti-fraud training needs to be engaging. Not just because fraud costs trillions, but because employees get a lot of training. According to Training Magazine's 2018 Training Industry Report, the average employee in the United States gets 46.7 hours of training each year. If you’re running anti-fraud training, you have a lot of competition for peoples’ time, attention and memory. Follow these five Cs of anti-fraud training success to maximize that time.
1. Communication
Clearly defining the purpose and objectives of the training before people walk in (or log on) is vital. If time allows, circulate a very short survey beforehand. This can help calibrate your training approach. For example, assessing trust in the anti-fraud program, measuring familiarity with the program or exploring where participants feel more support is needed.
We don’t all learn the same and we don’t all have the same levels of literacy and comprehension. A colleague in Japan recently observed employees with no English language skills completing anti-corruption e-learning in English. Their method for “passing” the training? They guessed at the multiple choice answers until they picked the right one and then shared the technique with others. If this U.S.-headquartered firm had communicated better with colleagues in Japan, they might have realized that training solely in English seldom works across globalized organizations.
Also, try to vary the media used in the training. Images, videos, games, role playing, stories, charts, data, statistics and catchphrases may all have their place. We each have communication preferences, and your challenge as the trainer is to provide variety without undermining the quality of your training.
2. Case studies
There can be a reticence to share cases from within your organization, but try to get over that. There’s no need to share sensitive or confidential information to communicate the core contents of a case. In feedback forms we’ve gathered from training hundreds of people, case studies from within an organization are almost always ranked as the most useful element.
If you don’t use case studies from within — or you don’t have them (lucky you!) — then use those from similar organizations and industries. It’s more difficult to engage people if you’re talking hypothetically and theoretically. The cases should be clearly structured, with a beginning, the findings and the takeaways.
3. Concise
Recent media reports suggest our attention span is ever-diminishing. That’s not entirely accurate. The counterargument suggests our attention span is task-dependent. In simplest terms, if we’re not engaged and find the task boring, we don’t pay attention. If we are engaged and find the task interesting, we pay attention for longer — all the more reason to keep your training audience engaged and doing the work. Case studies, group exercises, problem-solving, gamification and role-play all help.
If you’re conducting in-person training, facilitate don’t lecture. Test don’t teach. If you need to introduce and explain concepts that are either new or not adequately understood, remember the Albert Einstein quote, “If you can't explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Metaphors and stories can all help transform concepts to concretes.
4. Catchy
If you can weave a bit of humor (and self-deprecation) into your stories, that will help. While detecting, preventing and deterring fraud is a serious topic, the elements of a case can sometimes be comedic. Leverage that. If humor is not your strong suit, lean on the more brazen, absurd or daft examples and stories in your arsenal. If someone asked you to remember the strangest or most absurd story you’ve heard in a training session, I suspect a few would pop into your head.
5. Culturally relevant
One-size training doesn't work. It doesn’t always hold up as you travel across different geographic and functional cultures. Make sure your translation is idiomatic, not literal. The word “kickback” has many other names in other languages, for example.
Adapt cultural examples — including key festivals, national sports, social norms — to increase engagement, trust and the feeling that you understand and care about the local culture.
Beyond language, if your organization includes manufacturing, research and development, sales and support functions, you’ll know they don’t always see the world the same way. Use examples, cases and content that speaks to different functions.
Conducting training isn’t easy, but it is incredibly rewarding. When you are the person bringing helpful, applicable knowledge to someone, you have a chance to shape behaviors. You have a chance to help people reduce risk and continue a crucial dialogue with colleagues who are your eyes and ears on the anti-fraud frontline. Maximize that opportunity and make use of whatever precious proportion of those 46.7 hours you have!
For compliance and ethics programs to be effective, employees must understand their requirements, how to comply and where to find help. In “Developing a Compliance and Ethics Training Program,” an online self-study course, you can learn about the elements of an effective training program which includes legal compliance, ethical decision-making skills, anti-fraud education and best practices. Additionally, you will learn how to create and assess a compliance and ethics training program.
Rupert Evill, CFE, has 18 years of global experience across more than 30 sectors in over 40 countries. He has deep expertise in managing frontline risks, delivering immersive training, conducting intelligence-gathering operations, investigations and managing acute crises. Evill has augmented his professional experience with Postgraduate studies in Behavioral Analysis and Investigative Interviewing. He has lived in Asia for 10 years, after working across Europe for a decade. He can be reached at rupert@ethicsinsight.co.
