Why Is Compliance So Challenging For Companies

For companies of all sizes, the issue of compliance – adherence to internal codes of behaviour – remains a challenge. For large corporations especially, employee behaviour poses a risk factor that ought not to be underestimated. This is not just a question of potential profit losses; liability risks are a serious headache for large corporations. And still employees are far from having internalised the precepts of compliance. This was demonstrated by an article (in German) in the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung on an employee survey. The key statistics:

• 23% didn’t know what the term compliance meant
• 24% of those who didn’t know the term work at companies with more than 5,000 employees
• 36% (barely a third) are familiar with their own companies’ compliance rules

A second article (in German) on haufe.de describes dismissals at a major pharmaceutical company resulting from infractions against compliance rules.
But their code of conduct “lays out in only eight pages of simple English, without legal jargon, how the (123,000 worldwide) employees of the company and its partner companies are to behave.”

Does the root of the problem lie in those same eight pages of text, perhaps? How many employees actually read those pages? If they do, how many are paying attention? And afterwards, what really sticks in their minds? How effective can eight pages “in simple English” be?

And often it’s the tone that leads to a topic either being absorbed by its audience or… not. Preachy memos and finger-wagging communication don’t tend to elicit the desired acceptance or the aspired-for change in awareness.

Explainer videos are deployed more and more frequently in order to build awareness of compliance. An explainer video can achieve things that written communication, no matter how well organised it is, cannot. In only a few minutes, the core takeaways are boiled down to their essence, accessibly and sympathetically. The explainer video can create emotional identification and thus increase the viewer’s willingness to come to grips with a topic that is sometimes difficult to communicate. Afterwards, instructor-led courses, more detailed follow-up documents, or web-based training courses deepen the knowledge for those who require an even stronger grasp of the material.

High cost-effectiveness, positive responses and an immediate learning impact. Because an explainer video is worth more than 1000 words…