With more rapid changes to best practices, legislation and technology than ever before, it can be difficult to keep up. But that’s exactly why organizations should make sure their employee training modules are up to date. Letting your internal policies and the training that goes with them slip allows unethical employee behavior to thrive.

Well-crafted employee training modules set employees up for success in the workplace while also protecting other employees from issues like harassment and your organization from lawsuits and non-compliance penalties. Below are three essential training implementations that every organization should consider to work toward a more ethical workplace culture and help every employee feel safer.

Ethics Hotline Training

Creating an ethical workplace culture is all about increasing employee knowledge and training options regarding ethical guidelines. One key element in this is implementing an ethics hotline. A hotline is considered one of the traditional ethics reporting mechanisms and has been shown to be the most effective way to catch issues before they turn into major incidents. Communicating the details of your hotline regularly and through various methods reminds employees not only that it exists but also on how to use it effectively, to make themselves and their coworkers safer.

When conducting regular ethics training sessions, be sure to include thorough instructions on how to use your reporting mechanisms. At the end of the training session, every employee should know:

• How to identify an ethics breach.
• How to use the ethics hotline.
• What to expect after submitting a tip and how to track it.

Knowing exactly what to report (and how) can ensure your employees will neither abuse your ethics hotline or fail to report breaches.

Harassment and Bullying Training

If you designed your harassment training just to fulfill a legal or regulatory requirement, it probably does the bare minimum. Forcing employees to listen to a dry definition of harassment or watch half-hearted reenactments will just put them to sleep.

Your harassment training needs to be specific, empathetic and comprehensive to really prevent harassing behavior, encourage a culture of ethics, and give your company a positive reputation with employees and the public alike.

To best get your ethical message across, make sure your harassment training includes these three aspects:

• Allyship training: Victims shouldn’t have all the reporting responsibility put on them. Train employees on how to stand up to harassers if they witness this behavior to keep it from escalating and create a culture of kindness and mutual respect. When employees have each other’s back, harassers can become discouraged from disrespecting others over time.
• Practical content: Don’t miss the big picture by focusing on regulatory requirements. Share specific examples of harassing behaviors, communicate where and how employees should report harassment, and tell managers how to respond when an employee comes to them with a complaint. These exact examples and steps may vary depending on each department, so be sure to tailor training content as needed so that it really resonates with employees.
• Anti-harassment program tie-in: Training should be just one aspect of your anti-harassment efforts. To make real change, you need to incorporate your organization’s ethical ideals into every policy, procedure and process. This overarching policy not only guides training efforts, but also can help employees see that leadership is serious about upholding ethical standards.

Industry-Specific Ethics Training

Every industry has unique situations that require employees to make ethics-related choices. For instance, a wealth manager must decide what risks to take with a client’s money, while a construction manager must ensure their team is never compromising on safety or quality of work. Employees can understand their training if you illustrate your organization’s ethical standards using examples they could really encounter.

One company that is doing this well is United Airlines. The company’s Core4 training program teaches employees how to be “caring, safe, dependable and efficient” when dealing with travel scenarios. Employees participate in role-playing exercises in groups to try to solve customer service issues, afterward discussing the rationale for why they handled a scenario in a certain way. Using situations they could really see on the job, rather than using generic training role plays, can help employees learn how to exhibit kind and ethical behavior no matter what customers throw at them.

Employee Training for a More Ethical Culture

To ensure your employee training sticks, try to find new and engaging methods of training delivery. Sharlyn Lauby, SHRM-SCP and president at ITM Group, notes that training doesn’t have to be a long, boring lecture. Instead, she suggests creating internal podcasts or webinars, “that will help people remember, keep top of mind, those things that [you] want them to remember on a regular basis.”

Ultimately, training modules are just one part of a culture of ethics. Your organization’s ethical values should be ingrained in every part of your operations, from internal policies to performance evaluation to recruitment. When your values are built into employees’ everyday tasks, it can be easier for them to behave ethically and apply what they’ve learned in their training without much thought.