Thoughts For Successful Training Programs

Dear Import/Export Compliance Manager,

I am putting together a training program from scratch.  Do you have any tips on how to make it successful?

Didactic in Danbury

Dear Didactic,

Ah, training!  A great way to preach the import/export compliance gospel, reduce your own workload due to preventing import/export compliance problems and a mitigating factor in the event your company is being investigated.  Good for you in working to set the program up.  The Import/Export Compliance Manager is not a training guru but knows enough to give you some useful information.

The most important element of the training is to make it relevant to each and every single attendee.  The attendee should not only soak in what you’re trying to teach (though no one will retain all of the information) but they should understand how it is relevant to them directly in their job.  Sure, it’s great for someone in Accounting to know about embargoed countries but how is it relevant?  Talk to them about the Office of Foreign Assets Control regulations and valuation for imports.  The problem is that maybe the Shipping personnel don’t want to hear about that.  If you can, make individualized trainings per department or group.  Nothing gets someone’s attention more than including their department name in the title (ex. Import/Export Compliance Basics for Sales), well, except maybe ‘lunch will be provided’. 

It’s not always possible to customize per department or job function but you can at least customize it for your company.  Which do you think would be more effective: talking about needing an export license for a hypothetical widget or for a product specifically manufactured and sold by your company?  Training is a great time to tell the most exciting stories about your company’s import/export compliance risks.  Which product is the most highly-controlled?  Which country did you have a shipment get stuck for three months trying to clear customs in?  What did the unnamed former employee do that got them fired?  These are the stories that will stick in peoples’ heads and perhaps give them something to tell their spouse, friends or kids when they go home at night. 

Speaking of relevance, ensure that the training is updated each and every year.  There is no telling how many companies provide the same import/export compliance training module year after year after year.  This tells veteran employees that taking the training is more of a ‘checking the box’ exercise than something really meaningful.  Spice it up!  Do something to let people know that it has been updated for the current year, even if nothing has significantly changed.  And, although the Import/Export Compliance Manager is saying ‘year after year’, give it once every two years if you like, but not any less frequently than that.  It is up to you.

If the presentations can be given in-person by a polished and engaging presenter, do so.  It is infinitely preferable to on-line training in that the presenter can answer specific questions from the audience and thus tailor the presentation accordingly to the audience’s mindset.  It also allows the audience to tell jokes, feed off of their colleagues’ enthusiasm and ensure that you have their full attention.  It helps if you have an enforcer in the room who can keep attendees off of their cell phones and laptops.  The downside of in-person training, however, is that it is usually difficult to train everyone who needs to be trained that way as some people will invariably miss your training for one reason or another.  Thus you will have to do multiple make-up trainings. 

If you have to give online training, work extra hard to make it engaging for attendees.  If you have a lot of droning audio, it will be very tempting for people to, um, multitask by checking their work e-mail or do other things, only returning to the training when the audio has stopped.  Make the content as relevant as possible, make the snippets of audio short-and-sweet (or ditch audio altogether) and make the person click something occasionally or answer questions in the middle of the presentation.

Having a quiz to ensure understanding at the end of an online module is a good idea.  Don’t make people go through the training again if they miss it, though.  Instead, provide a link to a cheat sheet that they can print and put on their cube wall or a link to the Import/Export Compliance Department’s internal webpage (you do have one, right?).  The really important takeaway from your training is not all of the exact details but rather to have import/export compliance on the brain and know where to go to seek the answers (and to know when they need to call in the experts, i.e. the Import/Export Compliance Department).  Don’t give gotcha questions; rather, test on the basics of what they should know and include questions forcing them to check the cheat sheet or internal webpage.

For online training, be sure to provide the text of the audio as well.  Some people prefer to read rather than listen (the Import/Export Compliance Manager is firmly in this camp) but it also helps out employees for whom English is a second language (if you’re not already giving the training in their native language).  Don’t use big words and avoid American expressions such as ‘hitting a home run’ and ‘the whole enchilada’. 

There are companies out there who provide different types of online import/export compliance modules and others who can help you develop an online training module from the ground up (they are sometimes cheaper than the standard training companies, believe it or not).  Whatever you do, put some heart and soul into it so that not only can you check the box that the employees have been trained but that it actually meant something.  Remember, training is an extension of your department.  If it is not done well, it is not unreasonable for your co-workers to think that you do your other work in the same way.  Good luck!