More companies are providing compliance and ethics training for board members in light of the recent string of sexual harassment charges at several organizations and the emergence of the #MeToo campaign, according to a new report. But many companies still provide little or no specific sexual harassment training to directors, the study finds.
The survey, conducted by compliance and ethics software provider Navex Global, of more than 1200 compliance and ethics professionals from around the globe finds that 73 percent now train board directors on compliance issues, up from up from 44 percent in 2017 and 58 percent in 2016.
Yet, even with such high profile cases as charges and allegations against Harvey Weinstein, Steve Wynn, Disney’s John Lasseter, and many others, companies have been slow to require specific sexual harassment training for board members, with about two thirds requiring little or no training.
(See related article: “Harassment Issues Rooted More in Culture than Policy,”)
Recent reputation-damaging events have heightened awareness around the need to educate directors, Navex said in a press release on the study. “Sexual harassment is not a new issue and it’s one that reaches the top echelons of organizations, harming value and reputation when allegations surface,” said Ingrid Fredeen, vice president of online learning content at Navex.
More Work to Be Done
Still, the firm found what it calls “gaps” as directors are not fully educated on the most pressing risks. “While it’s encouraging that overall training for directors is up, far too many organizations are still rolling the dice and crossing their fingers by deciding not to provide sufficient training on this important topic,” said Fredeen.
According to the survey, Nearly 28 percent of organizations are either not training or training employees who aren’t managers only once on workplace harassment. For directors, the numbers are worse, with 65 percent either not receiving harassment training or only getting a single session. When it comes to other top risk areas, the percent of directors who never receive training is startling: code of conduct (25 percent), workplace harassment (44 percent), cyber security (25 percent), conflicts of interest (23 percent) and bribery and corruption (20 percent).
“Many boards are not trained on important topics and limited training is far from adequate,” Fredeen said. “Given directors’ oversight responsibility for organizational culture and behavior, critical topics should be addressed more regularly.”
Respondents identified their top training objective as creating a culture of ethics and respect—which had fallen behind complying with laws and regulations among objectives in last year’s survey. This might be a sign that organizations are taking a more holistic approach given the compliance failures in the news and a growing understanding about the importance of culture, said Navex.
Other findings in this year’s report include:
- Program maturity is linked to program effectiveness. The most mature programs are striving to innovate and reach employees where they are at; they utilize risk-based training, micro learning, adaptive learning, and just in time training at much higher rates than less mature programs. These organizations also struggle with more advanced challenges such as measuring return on investment.
- Less advanced programs remain challenged by persistent low-level issues such as: maturing programs cited covering all topics important to their industry, basic organizations pointed to limited hours available for training and reactive organizations struggle with insufficient resources.
- Respondents said training (56 percent) was the part of their ethics and compliance programs most responsible for preventing misconduct or ethical violations within their organizations in the past three years. Training played a more important role than procedure management systems (47 percent), hotline systems (39 percent) and third-party monitoring systems (18 percent). Training done right can represent the best line of defense and the best opportunity to drive the culture your organization wants.
This was the fifth year consecutive year that Navex conducted the survey. 
(See related article: “Harassment Issues Rooted More in Culture than Policy,”)