Compliance training refers to the process of educating employees on laws, regulations and company policies that apply to their day-to-day job responsibilities. An organization that engages in compliance training typically hopes to accomplish several goals: (1) avoiding and detecting violations by employees that could lead to legal liability for the organization; (2) creating a more hospitable and respectful workplace; (3) laying the groundwork for a partial or complete defense in the event that employee wrongdoing occurs despite the organization's training efforts; and (4) adding business value and a competitive advantage.
Organizations offer their employees compliance training on a wide range of topics, including workplace discrimination and harassment, dealings with competitors, insider trading, protecting trade secrets, records management, bribery and kickbacks, etc. Typically, most or all of these compliance topics are addressed in an organization's Code of Conduct, and the organization may offer employees annual or bi-annual Code of Conduct training in lieu of requiring employees to take multiple individual training programs.