What’s the key to building effective compliance training? Start with your audience. Just ask the special guest on our latest Zoom Chat: Nita Drakatos!

Nita has been working in compliance and ethics since 2004. As Director of Compliance and Ethics, Communication & Training, at Booking Holdings, Nita is a pro at reaching a young, diverse workforce. So Tricia invited her on for a Zoom Chat about developing compliance training and communications that resonate.

Here are three tips from their conversation to keep in mind while you’re developing compliance training for a young and diverse workforce.

1. Representation matters...

Gen Y (Millennials) is already the largest generation in the workforce, and Gen Z is quickly entering the business world behind them. These generations are the most diverse in history, and they bring a new set of expectations to work with them.

As Nita says, “We found that they expect diversity in their training courses, that they really need to have their content more bespoke, and we need to have employees and colleagues see it as reflected back as to who they are.”

Most companies realize representation is important for making employees feel included, but they may not realize that it’s also important for the effectiveness of their training. If employees don’t see themselves reflected in the training, that sends the message that the training wasn’t meant for them, and they’ll tune out.

“People need to see themselves or something that feels familiar to them on screen,” Tricia says. “And if they don’t, people’s minds will click off. And it’s every generation that will do that.”

2. ...and so does authenticity.

Nita and her team make it a priority to represent a diverse group of employees in their training, but they don’t “call attention” to it. They seamlessly incorporate characters of various races and ethnicities and of different abilities into their training as a reflection of their workforce.

As Nita says, “It doesn’t stand out in any way. It’s natural.” And that natural representation lets employees know that the company’s compliance messages are authentic.

3. Embrace an accessibility mindset.

Gen Y and Gen Z have grown up with phones and tablets and expect to “do things quickly on multiple devices.” And they aren’t alone: Gen X and Baby Boomers have embraced new technology at work and at home. If you want to reach your whole workforce, making sure your training works across phones, laptops, and tablets is a must, and so is addressing the accessibility needs of your audience.

But reaching your whole workforce is more than copying and pasting an old desktop course into a mobile-friendly wrapper. As Tricia points out, “That’s not just a different product. It’s also a different mindset in the creation process.”

Nita and her team think about the learner experience and accessibility from the get-go. From mobile responsiveness to screen readers and subtitles, Nita and her team start by building “content that works for all sorts of people.” And by incorporating that mindset from the start of a project, they’re able to build training and communications that are engaging and comfortable for as many people as possible.

Thank you so much to Nita for joining us for this Zoom Chat!

Keep an eye on our LinkedIn page for part two of Tricia and Nita’s Zoom Chat soon.

If you’re ready to build the right compliance and ethics training for your audience, the Rethink Compliance team can help. From bespoke to off-the-shelf, we make compliance and ethics training easy. Contact us for a free consultation.