Training for Senior Leaders and Board Members Declines According to NAVEX Global's 2015 Ethics & Compliance Training Benchmark Report

PORTLAND, Ore., July 21, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Ethics and compliance software and services leader NAVEX Global® today announced findings from its annual survey of professionals with responsibility for administering ethics and compliance training—including a concerning decline in training hours for senior leaders and board members.

Compared with last year's survey results, ethics and compliance training to senior leaders dropped by nearly 90 minutes to 4.38 hours and similar training to boards declined by an hour to 2.0 hours. Meanwhile, ethics and compliance training for non-management employees increased by about 60 minutes to 7.1 hours and middle-manager training remained the same at 6.5 hours.

"A decline in training for senior leadership is very concerning, particularly in a time when risks are growing more complex and employee cynicism is also a chief concern for survey respondents," said Ingrid Fredeen, J.D., NAVEX Global's vice president of online learning content and the report's author. "Employees grow cynical when they think the rules don't apply to everyone fairly. And if your employees are cynical about management support of integrity and culture change efforts, your training efforts will be significantly undermined."

Creating a culture of ethics and respect is respondents' top goal, just as it was in 2014. Forty-six percent of respondents this year said they were most focused on improving their culture, followed by complying with laws and regulations at 31 percent.

"That focus is a very good sign," Fredeen said. "But choosing training programs based on cost and not employee engagement and effectiveness—particularly with the concerns about cynicism—could interfere with creating that culture."

The majority of respondents (71 percent) expect their budgets will stay flat over the next 12 months. They indicated "limited hours available for training" was their number one program challenge and that "not enough budget" was the fourth greatest challenge—both cost-related issues. Additionally, one in four respondents indicated they do not have a dedicated training budget at all. These results suggest that training programs continue to struggle with challenges related to insufficient budget.

"If compliance professionals can better assess what is and is not working, they can make necessary changes to improve the programs," Fredeen said. "It will also put them in a much better position to ask for increased budget and additional training hours, if necessary, to support the organization's needs."

The full report shares further insights around:

• How well training programs are adapting to the needs of an evolving workforce and emerging risks
• Key training trends on the horizon
• How organizations are deploying their resources related to training—both in dollars and FTEs
• Whether training helps organizations defend their organizations from legal or regulatory risk
• Training approaches organizations are using
• Approaches to training global workforces
• Management and deployment of training budgets
• Threats training programs face

NAVEX Global will host a webinar to discuss key findings from the 2015 Ethics & Compliance Training Benchmark Report on Wednesday, July 22 at 1 p.m. ET. To register, visit: http://www.navexglobal.com/TrainingBenchmarkWebinar.

Download a copy of NAVEX Global's 2015 Ethics & Compliance Training Benchmark Report at www.navexglobal.com/TrainingBenchmarkReport.

About NAVEX Global's Benchmark Reports 
NAVEX Global's trusted hotline, training and policy management benchmark reports help ethics and compliance professionals measure their programs against peers and industry standards to make better decisions and increase ethics and compliance program effectiveness.

About NAVEX Global 
NAVEX Global's comprehensive suite of ethics and compliance software, content and services helps protect your people, reputation and bottom line. The trusted global expert to nearly 75 of the FORTUNE 100 and 8,000+ clients overall, our solutions are informed by the largest ethics and compliance community in the world.

Learn more about NAVEX Global (www.navexglobal.com) online: Ethics & Compliance Matters™ Blog (blog.navexglobal.com), @NAVEXGlobal (twitter.com/navexglobal), LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com/company/navex-global), Facebook (www.facebook.com/NAVEXGlobal) and SlideShare (www.slideshare.net/NAVEXGlobal).

SOURCE NAVEX Global

Related Links

http://www.navexglobal.com