Let’s face it. No one likes compliance training. Right? There aren’t compliance training parties. People don’t sign up for “fantasy compliance training leagues” It’s not big in video games. (Though maybe a game like candy crush where you are crushing regulations could be popular.) So how do get employees to not only listen to training, but actually adopt it? And that’s a problem we all would like an answer to…

Be Relevant = Shift To Employee Perspective

In past articles we’ve looked at the three pillars of great grant management. These three elements focus on what it takes to keep the Federal funds flowing. They include: #1 Be Seen #2 Be Safe #3 Be Relevant In this article we’re going to shift our focus from how the funding agencies perceive us, and turn to the employee perspective by looking at what makes training relevant to them. We started with a little research on what makes things relevant to people.

Two Things Make Training Relevant to Employees

Here’s what we found in a 2013 CEB Training Effectiveness Survey: The top two things that make training relevant are: #1 The training must be relevant for skill development. #2 The employees must be motivated to apply the training in their day-to-day lives. (After all, who wants to go to a bunch of training that has nothing to do with your current jobs, or in the jobs you want to have?) So the two keys for relevance involve making a connection with skill development and application. What would that look like?

Imagine What Grant Management Training Could Be Like…

Close your eyes for a second. Imagine what it would look like if you could have:

• Employees welcoming training instead of fighting it
• People listening attentively rather than reading email or texting during training
• Better grant management outcomes and higher employee job satisfaction

The truth is that if you do this part right, everyone will love compliance training. OK, I’m sorry, I can’t promise that. But if you do this right, you might just get a little more appreciation for your training efforts and you may find people won’t fight as hard about learning how to manage grants consistent with the new grant guidance. Would that be a step in the right direction?

5 Tips That Engage Employees Without Repelling Them

The way to make the grant regulations relevant can be summarized with a focus on what matters to the employees. (And this may NOT be the same as what matters to the organization, or the Federal award.) Start by asking yourself, is the training:

1. Applicable to the specific employees being trained?
2. Important to the employee’s objectives?
3. Related to their job duties?
4. Concisely stated and applied?
5. Consistent with existing culture?

These five factors can make the difference between relevant training, and the “flavor-of- the-month” training that is forgotten as soon as people leave the room.

Put Relevance Into Grant Management

Let’s explore each of these tips in more detail:

Tip #1: Make It Applicable to Specific Employees

First, when training is applicable to specific employees, the employee can say it is:

1. Helpful and related to my work
2. Clearly related to goals I want to achieve
3. Connected to things I am measured on

Applicability also increases the level of motivation in completing the training.

Tip #2: Make It Important to the Employee’s Objectives

Next, if the training is important to the employee objectives, they would agree that it:

• Positively affects my value to others
• Favorably affects my value to the organization
• Show positive results with things I care about.

(I mean, otherwise, what’s the point?) Each employee has goals they want to achieve. Relevant training makes it easy to connect-the-dots between what they are learning and their objectives.

Tip #3: Make It Related to Their Job Duties

Can the employee see a relationship to their job duties?

• This primarily centers on day-to-day activities

Would the employee agree that the training gives the ability to:

• Increase my level of confidence in what I do?
• Reduce my stress in interactions with others?

Let’s face it, asking for help is stressful! Ask the question that is in the minds of employees: “How can this training make me more comfortable in performing my job duties?”

Tip #4: Keep It Concisely Stated

Next, is the training concisely stated? This includes:

• Presented in the right amount of time (Or are you spending 2 1/2 days talking about indirect cost rate proposals?)
• Holds attention throughout (How many of you are thinking about lunch right now?)
• Easy to recognize the key points (Are you looking for a needle in a haystack or have you provided a leaf blower to blow away the hay so just the needles are sitting there Grant Regulations Relevant?)

Tip #5: Keep It Consistent With Existing Culture

Finally, is the training consistent with existing culture? Does it:

• Reinforce other forms of communication?
• Include visible incentives for compliance?
• Have performance and evaluation incentives tied to compliance?

Or does it seem like there never any accountability for non-compliance? If employees see a “do as we say, not as we do” culture, the relevance of the training will be diminished Grant Regulations Relevant.

Give Relevance a Chance

Relevance is the “special sauce” that often gets overlooked in compliance training. Adopting these tips is the next step to make training more meaningful which support better grant management of federal awards. To paraphrase John Lennon: “All we are saying is give relevance a chance!”

The NEW Grant Regulations Make This Even More Important

One of the goals and priorities of the new uniform guidance is to support a well-trained workforce. So, making sure your employees find this major change initiative relevant is more important than ever with the new grant regulations.

Ready to Improve Your Grant Management?

How about you? Would you like to be a better grant manager? We have another grant management training seminar coming soon. Click here to get all the details! Hope to see you there! Author: Lucy Morgan CPA, MBA CEO, Compliance Warrior Author of “Decoding Grant Management-The Ultimate Success Guide to the Federal Grant Regulations in 2 CFR Part 200” The 2nd Edition is now available on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle versions.