Integrity Matters: Culture, Training and Compliance - Part 5: Operational Aspects of Training

Welcome to this special podcast series, Integrity Matters: Culture, Training and Compliance, sponsored by K2 Integrity. This week I visit with Koby Bambilia, Managing Director, and Tina Rampino, Associate Managing Director. Over the series we have broken down corporate culture, compliance training and communications. Topics included breaking down the big picture on culture, espresso shots of training, skills development and regulatory changes, tailored and risked based training and operational aspects of training. In this concluding Part 5, I am joined again by Tina Rampino who reviews key operational aspects of training, including budget, delivery and more.

We began with a discussion of one of the most critical issues around compliance training, but one I believe does not get nearly enough discussion in the compliance community, that being the issue of budgeting. During times of economic stress compliance training budgets are often tightened. Rampino believes this approach needs to be avoided. The reason is straight forward, “investing in training and professional development for employees can save money in the long-run, both operationally and when it comes to regulatory requirements. An institution’s greatest asset is their employees and especially when you’re entrusting them to protect your institution from risk.”

This means that if you are providing employees with ongoing training to assist them to continuously refine their knowledge and skills; it will also keep them engaged and incentivized to take compliance more seriously. Moreover, as Rampino noted, “developing and retaining employees is beneficial to financial institutions in the long-run and demonstrates sustainability within the compliance program.” Instead of cutting back on training budgets in general, institutions should assess the training needs as they align with the greatest risk and find ways to deliver the most targeted and relevant training across the enterprise. Rampino advocates several different styles of compliance training. These include, having a “balance of online/in-person training; including independent or self-guided training; as well as hands on training with an instructor.”

We concluded with Rampino’s thoughts on regulatory expectations around compliance training. She believes, “Regulators are more interested than ever in seeing that an institution is investing in a sustainable, scalable, and dynamic training program. They want to know that an institution understands their risks and that it demonstrates that with the training that is provided to their employees. Regulators are expecting more targeted and role-based training offerings and that the content is evolving as the risks evolve.”

K2 Integrity has developed an online training platform and resource center, Dedicated Online Financial Integrity Network (DOLFIN), to help clients with their training requirements and provide more diverse options for training content and modalities. Find out more about DOLFIN here. For more information on K2 Integrity click here.