Why training alone is not enough to sustain compliance

Sure, training is important. It’s the cornerstone of any solid operation, and critical to help employees feel informed, comfortable and armed for success. But what happens when the training is over? Audits are the perfect tool to monitor and measure your team's compliance to specific policies and procedures over time for consistent results.

Even if you can train round the clock, bad habits are learned from other employees, general human tendencies set in, attention to detail is overlooked for speed or an easier way…

'We have a program in place to constantly coach and role-play with our employees…

'Our self-service portal is open to employees anytime they want more training…'

'Communications, checklists and conference calls are completed weekly to ensure all team members are following the latest policies and procedures…

Even with solutions like these in place you're still lacking three important criteria to ensure you have a clear, ongoing measure of your team's compliance:

	Consistency Who is ensuring all checklists are completed every week, or all communications are being read? What happens when you're short-staffed or its busier than expected? If it does in fact take 21 days to create a habit (its much closer to 60 days) it only takes 3 days to forget it. How does that affect your operations when on-boarding or launching new policies?
	Objectivity Most team members and managers are going to have a bias towards one another whether consciously or sub-consciously. In HR terms it’s the 'halo & horn' effect. Unless they're a mind-Jedi this will skew results for most anyone completing a checklist or audit of their team's performance. Far better to let an impartial party do your auditing and let you managers focus on coaching and accountability.
	At-Random Are all dayparts captured in your process? Are all levels of team members being held accountable to the training and standards? How can you ensure that employee is they really 'doing the right thing even when no one is watching'? Studies show more people do the right thing simply when they know they are being watched. One study showed an average 7% revenue increase for restaurants just by implementing loss prevention measures.

When it comes to your business, especially now with preventing disease spread on all our minds for the long term, consider how an objective third party can help ensure you team's compliance. Or supplement your training, hold them accountable and instill a sense of pride with routine audit reports that - when used correctly - will only help to support and drive positive performance.

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