According to the Social Science Research Network (SSRN), 65 percent of people are visual learners. That means if you hold a meeting, training session, or some other work-related gathering, unless you use some type of visual aid, you’ll probably lose the majority of your audience’s attention within minutes. Although you have many different options, slideshow presentations still reign supreme.

Regardless of which type of presentation you decide on, an excellent way to help your staff absorb and retain the information shared is by using a PowerPoint slideshow or some other visual aid. Each of the options listed below boasts unique capabilities and advantages. Keep in mind that for training purposes, it’s especially important to select the appropriate type of presentation.

An informative speech is the most commonly used form of presenting research data. With this, your Learning and Development (L&D) Manager has the opportunity to present specific findings in a systematic way that people understand.

As the name implies, this presentation involves communicating with your employees through some kind of demonstration. Whether that’s how to work machinery, install a component, or make the perfect wedding cake, you want to use slides that contain images along with step-by-step instructions to drive the message home. 

The goal of this presentation is to encourage your employees to see things differently than they currently do. For instance, if you want to emphasize the importance of an open-door policy among your leadership team or help your employees understand the value of eating nutritional foods, this would be the correct presentation to use. In other words, this presentation works to change thinking patterns about a particular issue or topic. 

Do you want to “light a fire” under your sales and marketing team, show your employees how a new product solves problems, or perhaps you have young employees who need a gentle push to help them feel excited about achieving success within your organization? An inspirational speech works to motivate people and push them toward a goal. 

For a presentation to make the greatest impact, consider combining a little bit of each type of speech. You can still focus on a primary topic but at the same time, cover more bases. 

For a presentation to have the intended impact on your employees, it’s vital that you include the right leaders during the planning phase. If you want to organize a corporate-wide training program, you need input from your HR Director, L&D Manager, and even your Compliance Manager. However, for a presentation that’s more department-focused, you want your HR Director and the department head to brainstorm together.

Regardless of the presentation, and whether you’re organizing in-house training for a large group or sharing information obtained through an online course for a select number of employees, success starts by creating a compelling and memorable message.

See Things from the Employees’ Perspective 

When putting a presentation together, try to see things from your employees’ viewpoint. By drafting a speech with humor, emotion, storytelling, and interesting facts, you will have a captivated audience.

You don’t want to give presentations just for the sake of saying you did. Instead, there must be a point for the meeting or training session. Some reasons include a new product rollout, launching a new service, utilizing different equipment or machinery, and bringing your employees up-to-date on compliance issues. Select a topic that will ultimately benefit both your staff and the organization.

Instead of a catch-all, a presentation should have one focus and one goal. If you have multiple topics to address, you can either create additional presentations or have the applicable staff members complete training courses online. That way, you don’t hold up production for the sake of covering everything with one swipe. 

Before finalizing a presentation, including the supporting documentation that you pass out to employees, double and even triple check all facts. Along with that, make sure your spelling and grammar are on point. 

Just like “location, location, location” is vital in the real estate world, practice is critical when preparing for presentations. The more you practice the better the results.  

A common mistake made by presenters is having employees take notes. Since everyone has a unique perception, there’s no guarantee they’re all writing down the same message. Therefore, prepare supporting materials and pass them out before giving your presentation.

Remember, the material you hand out should support the topic of the speech. At no time do you want to give your employees a copy of the slides themselves as that makes you look lazy and disinterested. 

After creating a killer presentation comes the fun, and also nerve-wracking part: delivering the message. Use the following tips to ensure your employees engage.

From the minute that you take the stage, put your credentials on display. That doesn’t mean going over your entire career bio, but rather providing important details that let your employees know you’re a person of authority on the topic and in the industry. As a credible presenter, your audience is more likely to pay close attention.

Early on, let your staff know the goal of the presentation. Whether you’re there to get input about a new product, service, or process, setting and revealing the goal helps people relate and it’ll keep you on task.

Even when addressing a serious topic, a compliance issue pertaining to workplace safety for example, not only do you want to inform your employees, but it’s also important entertain them to some degree. Remember, giving a presentation in front of a live audience is entirely different than sending out an internal email. Therefore, you need to appeal to their emotions, which comes from both passion and humor.

As stated by Jeremy Choi, a highly respected entrepreneur, leader, and professional presenter, “Create a single sentence description for every service, product, or idea.” He explains that a presentation riddled with long descriptions appears confusing. For that reason, he stresses to keep descriptions as part of a PowerPoint presentation slide to no more than 140 characters.

If you opt for a slideshow presentation in conjunction with your speech or training, never use more than 10 slides, keep the duration to 20 minutes, and use at least a 30-point font. Anything more than that will cause your staff to lose interest. If you look at reputable Learning Management Systems, you’ll see that most courses take little time to complete.

While the person who gives the presentation may feel “weak in the knees,” he or she needs to stand tall and appear confident. You can help with this by offering the leaders in your company access to online courses that focus specifically on building confidence and creating poise.

For a lot of people, especially those giving a presentation in front of a large audience, making eye contact feels uncomfortable. However, eye contact helps hold the group’s attention, allowing for the message to stick.

Especially when using a PowerPoint slideshow when giving a presentation, never read each slide word-for-word. A speech becomes far more powerful by first understanding the message and then delivering it without referring to the slideshow. As a result, you’ll give off an air of confidence and authority that makes people listen. In other words, use PowerPoint slides to support statements as opposed to using them as a teleprompter.

Perhaps the best tip on delivering a presentation is to tell a story. Provide the group with real-life illustrations and scenarios that help them relate. As an example, the presenter could share about an injury sustained due to a non-compliance issue or landing the dream job through hard work, dedication, and determination. For this, the possibilities are endless.

There’s nothing more frustrating than attending a presentation only to hear nothing because you’re seated toward the back of the room. Therefore, make sure you have all the necessary technology in place to enhance both the visual and audio experience. 

What better way to drive a message home than with an open question and answer session following a presentation? When you are finished with the speech, encourage your employees to ask questions followed by you or a member of your leadership team providing the correct answer. Along with helping your employees learn, this is an excellent way to boost morale, in that it makes your staff feel valued.

Along with what your employees ask, throw out some thought-provoking questions of your own. Choose those that prompt forward-thinking and make your staff feel eager to learn the answer.

By showing up early to give a presentation, you have the opportunity to set everything up. That way, when your employees arrive, you can start the meeting or training session right on time.

The great thing about creating and delivering a presentation is there’s no written rule that says you have to stay within specific confines. In fact, some of the best presenters in the world, including the late Steve Jobs, have a knack for stepping outside of the box, regardless of the type of speech involved. While you and your leadership team can come up with some creative options, you might throw the following into the mix.

As mentioned, storytelling is a crucial part of any successful presentation. Even if you need to toss out a lot of facts and statistics, incorporate them in a story. By doing so, you create a story that demonstrates and supports the details provided.

Another powerful way to give a presentation involves using video. If the situation warrants, you could also incorporate background music. For instance, if you have a funeral planning business, a video showing a beautifully manicured cemetery with soothing music accompanying it would set the stage.

Although there’s talking and words that go along with a photo presentation, this entails adding images to your slideshow and letting them make a statement. The goal is to carefully choose photos that connect to the topic and resonate with your employees, but without them being too distracting.

An excellent way to present involves getting your workers involved. Rather than watch a slideshow or listen to you talk throughout the presentation, have them participate. Depending on what you want to achieve, you can select people randomly, ask for volunteers, or organize several groups of employees that work together.

When introducing a new product or going over the details of how something works, a prop presentation is ideal, In lieu of PowerPoint slides, you would use different types of visual aids. For example, if rolling out a revolutionary new smartphone, you might use a cell phone from the 1980s as a prop to stress how far technology has come.

If you have a manufacturing company that makes various types of kitchen gadgets, you could combine a prop and interactive presentation to have a few employees perform a task the old way versus the new way with a cutting-edge product.

Along with all the things that you should do when creating and delivering a presentation, there are some mistakes that you want to avoid at all costs. For starters, you always want to expect the unexpected. You never know if right in the middle of a speech, the projector bulb will go out or the electricity will shut off. While not a life crisis, never give a presentation without a backup plan in place.

Also, never think you can wing a presentation. Even if you have years of experience in the industry and vast knowledge of the topic, standing before a group of employees is a completely different game. It’s usually not so much a case of bad nerves but more disorganization. This is why you want the right leadership team involved from the beginning and the reason that practicing is so vital.

One final mistake has to do with coming off as robotic. No matter the position you hold in the company, your employees know you’re human so there’s no reason to try to present yourself as perfect. Instead, smile and enjoy the process of sharing information and educating the people who work hard to help your organization succeed.

Whether using training material you find online in your presentation or offering courses to different members of your staff, Go1 is the best resource. We have a massive library of business topics in podcast, video, article, and blog format.

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Become a master of work presentations with these top tips

According to Merriam-Webster, a fire warden is an “officer who has responsibility for fire control in a particular area such as one who directs a crew in the suppression of forest fires, or a fire patrolman in a logging area.” However, along with focusing on exterior locations, this person also serves to protect businesses and infrastructures.

All you have to do is look at the devastation caused by the California wildfires to appreciate the role a fire warden plays in protecting the environment and surrounding structures. While the total numbers aren’t in yet, officials estimate more than $2.5 billion in claims. 

The red hat a fire warden wears may separate him or her physically from other experts in this field, but there’s much more to what this person does to educate and help prepare businesses in the event of a fire. For this reason, it’s essential to have the right person in this role, someone with extensive training and preferably, experience.

As a business owner, it’s critical that you select someone to serve as the fire warden who is professional, dedicated, and diligent. Because this individual has the responsibility to minimize risks to human life and the business as a whole, making the right choice is vital. 

Your job is to ensure the fire warden has access to excellent training. Remember, in an actual emergency, and even with a solid plan in place, this person must make split-second decisions. As an example, is a fire small enough to put out without evacuating the entire company? Is there enough time available to reenter the building to perform a final sweep? What is the safest way to evacuate someone in a wheelchair?

Something else of importance to consider is that the fire warden that you appoint needs a support system. Therefore, you want to designate the right people for that role as well. A coordinator serves as a liaison between the fire warden and your leadership team. This person should also have extensive knowledge of the building layout and the company’s policy on handling fires.

When it comes to hiring a fire warden, you could work with an outside agency. However, there are many advantages to appointing someone for this role from within your organization. As an employee, you can anticipate a higher level of dedication. Invested in the growth and success of the company, a staff member will typically go above and beyond the basic requirements.

Having an employee as a fire warden also means the person is on-site on a daily basis. Therefore, this individual better understands the layout of the building, which areas are at a higher risk, the processes and materials used, how staff members react to implementing new policies, and so on.

Having incredible insight into the daily operations of the business makes it easier for the warden to carry out duties, even when they involve raising the alarm to a respective manager pertaining to another worker’s poor decision-making that creates a risk. As an employee, the warden also improves communication across the board with your entire leadership team, allowing them to do their part in educating their teams on workplace safety.

From a practical standpoint, it’s always best to have a fire warden onsite at all times. When selecting an employee for this position, you want someone interested in the job. The individual should never consider this role burdensome but rather an honor to protect the company and everyone who works there.

The fire warden should also possess excellent communication skills, both listening and oral, and have the ability to create detailed reports. After all, in this position, the employee will work closely with your local Fire Marshall, so you want someone professional yet approachable.

A fire warden has three types of duties: preparedness, proactive, and reactive. Rather than a part-time position, this person serves a full-time role as the handler of issues involving the reduction or elimination of the risk of a fire.

Develop and update a viable fire evacuation emergency plan

Instruct leaders the correct way to respond to an emergency

Help implement and improve emergency procedures within the workplace 

Lead fire drills and evacuation procedures (includes familiarizing employees with the safest escape routes and exits closest to their workstations)

Install necessary fire-fighting and safety equipment

Check all doors, windows, and any other emergency exits, ensuring they open and close fully. At the same time, this individual needs to make sure the exits are compliant with laws and regulations such as having no boxes or other items stacked in front, unlocked, no broken mechanisms, and so on. If the warden repeatedly finds obstructions, he or she needs to re-educate your staff.

Ensure every item is in its correct place and is in proper operating condition when inspecting fire-fighting equipment. As an example, you need a specific number of fire extinguishers strategically placed throughout the workplace. The warden verifies their availability, checks for any signs of tampering, and sends them for service as required.

Oversee the management of combustible and flammable waste material to make sure your staff disposes of items correctly and safely

Walk around the building to check that all equipment, machinery, and electrical cables work properly and pose no risk

Document incidents and keep detailed records current

Monitor the efficiency of your fire risk control systems and procedures, and inform you and the applicable leadership team about potential fire hazards in the workplace

Help people in any way during an actual emergency, especially those with physical or mental limitations (wheelchair-bound, blind, deaf, and those with limited cognitive ability)

Perform a sweep of the building, searching for people who might try to find cover in the restroom, storage room, locker, and so on

Direct everyone to a predesignated area, making it possible to perform an accurate headcount

Close all doors and windows to prevent a fire from spreading.

Even if you appoint someone as the fire warden for your company who has years of experience in this type of work, it’s crucial that you provide ongoing training. Fortunately, you can offer this through a reputable Learning Management System platform. With this, you, the warden, and the coordinator can review recommended courses by OSHA, as well as select other training programs that you deem important.

Along with the training completed by the warden, you can offer your entire staff some of the same opportunities. That way, your entire organization has insight into things to look for, when to report a problem, how to take quick action, and so on. The more knowledge your employees have when it comes to fires the better.

In fact, and especially if you have a company in an industry with increased risk, you might consider having your fire warden work alongside your HR manager to develop a training program for all new hires. As for your existing staff, the warden needs to pass out information about fire safety and the evacuation policy, combined with providing online training once or twice a year.

The person you appoint as the fire warden plays a critical role in protecting everyone within your company, whether employees, contractors, visitors, vendors, and so on. Without question, this individual is your first line of defense, someone who puts his or her life on the line to do everything possible to save lives. 

The Learning Management System you select is critical to how well a job the fire warden does. You need to make sure this person receives the highest standard of training possible. That way, the warden can fulfill all the duties mentioned, plus more. Not only will this individual gain tremendous knowledge on preparedness, proactive, and reactive responsibilities, but he or she will also stay calm and in control during an emergency.

If your company experiences a fire, you can expect some employees to panic. Even with the best instructions provided, not everyone remains calm during an emergency. The fire warden wears many hats, including one of consoling and calmness while at the same time, forcing people to take quick and appropriate action. In a high-pressure situation, those are essential qualities.

As part of the training involved to work as a fire warden, the individual needs to focus on specific areas, including:

One of the best things about using online training is that most courses take less than an hour to complete. As a result, you can have the fire warden and coordinator continually educate themselves without any interference to their day-to-day responsibilities. This training is also easily accessible. For that reason, the warden can complete it at home if preferred.

You have the same benefit when setting up fire training for new and existing employees. Depending on the size of your company and its operations, you could designate an hour for everyone to complete training together or set up groups. Either way, everyone receives the same information, which enhances the overall protection strategy.

For the protection of your business, it’s imperative that you have a qualified fire warden on the job before a fire breaks out. In this case, you would need to ensure the individual has completed all necessary training to perform the essential duties. That person must understand and comply with current health and safety laws, and cooperate with internal policies and procedures on dealing with this type of emergency.

In the role of a fire warden, the individual you select has the responsibility to carry out multiple duties such as keeping employees updated on new policies, carrying out fire and evacuation drills, and more. This person must also become educated about the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s (OSHA) standards to ensure your company remains compliant with any applicable laws and regulations.

As hard as it is to remember the devastation that occurred on the 9/11 terrorist attacks, that day serves as a reminder of why companies utilize fire wardens. Although the death toll was far too great, more innocent people would have died without these professionals doing their job. Even if you have a small business with only 10 employees, you want to do everything possible to save lives. Therefore, you can’t afford to pass up the opportunity to train someone as a warden.

What a lot of people don’t know is that in response to the 1993 attack on the Twin Towers, officials with the New York Port Authority organized evacuation drills and upgraded stairwells within the buildings in the event of a terror attack. As a result, virtually everyone inside who completed the training and located below the upgrades lived. That goes to show how vital a fire warden is in identifying the need for change and making things happen.

Even after covering some of this information, there are a few points worth reemphasizing. As for the number of fire wardens you should have in the workplace, OSHA, a division of the US Department of Labor, recommends two per every 20 building occupants. If you have a large organization, you might create a subgroup as part of your Risk Management team, so they work on preparedness and take proactive measures as a cohesive group.

When it comes to training, online courses prove highly beneficial. For this, the fire warden should complete updated courses at least every six months. Along with online options, it’s just as important for your fire warden to have face-to-face meetings within his or her group, as well as with managers of your other leadership teams and the Fire Marshall.

Finally, as part of preparedness, every employee within your organization should have both the name and contact information of the fire warden. You might even order a special uniform, making the warden and coordinator easily recognizable. As the business owner, it’s your job to provide the person in this role with the proper tools and resources to succeed and to openly listen to any concerns or issues that arise.

Whether you currently have one or more fire wardens on staff or plan to appoint some in the near future, Go1 is an outstanding Learning Management System platform with an abundance of online training material. Protect your business, its contents, and most importantly, human life, by giving your employees access to the quality training they need.

Employee performance feedback - who wants it?

Giving your staff negative feedback can be stressful for both you and them. Let’s face it no-one likes being told what they’re doing wrong. And who likes confrontation. 

What if you could use positive feedback to fix an employee performance problem? Sounds a little crazy I know, so I’m going to tell you a little motivational story. 

Giving effective feedback is one of the essential manager skills. If you’re a manager looking to improve employee performance with better communication find out more here: 

This is the common scenario many managers face: Carol, a receptionist, has recently been late for work. 

So this story starts with a minor performance infraction, are you a manager who has experienced something similar? I know I have, and I know that when this happens, I start evaluating my options. Some of the things that go through my head include:

This is a minor issue that doesn’t justify a long performance discussion. I’m busy enough as it is, so I’ll wait and see if it becomes an issue,

Carol already knows what her start time is, she doesn’t need me to remind her and

I don’t want to seem petty, get into an argument and end up with Carol disliking me

In this story what happens is that Carol's manager hesitates to address this (minor) employee performance problem. The “reasons” above become excuses to avoid dealing with the issue. As a result, someone else must stop what they are doing and cover the front desk until she arrives. Her behavior affects members of the team. 

Worse, by not addressing her tardiness, this manager is sending the message that they condone this behaviour.

In a parallel universe, Carol’s manager does something different. No, they don’t undertake the unpleasant task of calling Carol into their office for a serious talking to about punctuality. Instead they does something incredibly easy and simple. They starts giving a particular type of positive feedback when Carol does something right:

“Good morning Carol. I like seeing you at the desk when I arrive because then I know there is someone here to greet our      customers.”

“Good morning Carol, I’m glad to see you on the desk. I want you to know that your work on reception is important to the whole team to keep everything running smoothly. I appreciate that. Can you please keep that up?” 

“Good morning Carol. I’m glad to see you here before start time – now I know I don’t have to worry about covering      reception. Can you please continue with that?”

Hasn’t said anything unpleasant or got involved in an unpleasant confrontation,

Hasn't delayed their feedback until annual performance review and

Hasn't even spent a long time giving performance feedback.

They is using secret ninja manager skills to fix a problem. 

Effective performance feedback. The power of words:

These simple words have a very powerful employee engagement and job satisfaction effect:

Feeling Valued & Acknowledged: The manager has let Carol that they are aware of the contribution that Carol makes, they appreciate the work she does and she is valued, 

Doing Important Work: The manager has told Carol how her work is part of a larger whole. Even though many people might think that a receptionist is a low-level role, the manager is helping Carol to find the value and meaning in her work

A Sense of Belonging: The manager has shown Carol how she is an important part of the team. They have shown her that she has a role that others rely on her to do. This helps people to feel like an important part of a community and to feel accepted,

Increasing Performance: And if you look carefully, you’ll also see that the manager has asked Carol to commit to coming in on time in the future. This isn’t just praise because effective feedback motivates employees to make a positive future change


So what do you think will be the result of these words of encouragement. With that sort of consistent performance feedback, do you think it’s likely that Carol will be late in the future? Based on what other managers have experienced. This sort of positive feedback doesn't just fix individual problems. This positive feedback increases employee motivation, increases employee engagement and employee retention. This is because acknowledgement, feeling valued, doing meaningful work and having a sense of belonging are strong drivers of employee satisfaction, employee engagement and staff retention. 

And by improving employee engagement all aspects of performance improve, not just the little things.

Managing by exception is a management excuse

The “Manage by Exception” management technique is where the manager keeps an eye on things and only performance manages problems. But the problem is if you only give feedback when your employees do something wrong then the only feedback that you give is negative.

All this negative feedback is destroying your employee relations. If you are consistently negative and critical, no wonder employees don't like you or want to listen to you. Dr Gottman's magic ratio for healthy relationships is 5 times as many positive interactions as negative. Healthy employee relations doesn't mean making your employees like you as a friend, Healthy employee relations means respect and good communications. Positive feedback builds employee engagement.

“About 90% of the things in our life are right. Make sure you don’t overlook the 90% of things that are right because you are focusing on the 10% of things that aren’t.”

Positive feedback isn't only for positive performance

There is a misconception that positive performance feedback is only for good performance. But as I’ve shown above, you can and should use positive performance feedback to also fix employee performance issues. This works for employee performance issues large and small. And regular performance communication is one of the tools that successful managers use to get results. In fact the real technique isn’t just to use feedback when you have a performance problem. As a manager if you communicate regularly and frequently about performance your employees will be more engaged.

Are you a manager responsible for the performance of your employees? Is there a performance issue that you wish your employees would pay more attention to? Find out How to Use Positive Feedback to Fix Performance Problems here. 

I hope that you have enjoyed this motivational story and that you are inspired to use positive feedback with your staff. 

Manager Foundation specializes in the skills that managers need to know to create a healthy, productive and satisfying work environment. Giving effective performance communication is an essential manager skill because it supports you to be an effective manager in your other management duties:

Use performance communication when you delegate to your employees: See the Ultimate Guide to Delegation to find out more

The best place to give performance communication is in your One on One Meetings with Employees

Use positive feedback to keep your employees on track when you are coaching them to improve their skills and abilities

Effective communication is as much listening as speaking. Find out how to use Active Listening Skills to coach your employees to fix their own problems

The APAC conference is hosted by Totara Learning Solutions, and runs across two days. You will hear from the Totara Team, as well as able to attend Partner-run workshops on day two. Go1 will be hosting a workshop at the Conference with special benefits for anyone who attends! 

The Go1 team will run a workshop that deep dives into how to use the Content Marketplace plugin, and how L&D professionals can create effective learning plans with the e-learning courses available. Go1's workshop is at 9.00am March 19th. 

Filter and curate relevant off-the-shelf content for your learners.

Create multi-activity and single-activity courses from multiple providers

Update existing courses with new content.

Configure gradebooks and then view learners’ outcome on Totara Learn.

Identify courses that allow unlimited free preview

Source niche courses and instructor-led trainings via Go1 Training Assist

Get recommendations from Go1 experts on the best courses and vendors, that meet your training needs

Configure your 1st custom course collection with Go1’s course experts.

If you’re on Totara Learn v10.15 and up, v11.9, register and attend our workshop, you can enjoy the following benefits:

1:1 session with a consultant who helps configure your Content Market Place to meet your specific users training needs.

Redeem your $5000 Totara Content Marketplace Premium Library coupon that is valid for 90 days. 

Secure your spot at the Totara User Conferences in Melbourne  

Event date: Monday, 18 Mar 2019 8:30am to Tuesday, 19 Mar 2019 4:00pm

Event location: Cliftons Freshwater Place, Level 18/2 Southbank Boulevard , Southbank 3006, 

Join the Totara Community and collaborate and learn from each other's experiences. 

We're excited to announce Go1 will be at the APAC Totara User Conference!

The content spotlight this week is on Mind Channel's course called Communication Skills (Part 1 and 2). 

The Communication Skills course might be bite-sized but it offers a variety of practical communication tips. In a total of six minutes, your staff can take away five CLEAR tips to improve communication skills in both their professional and private life. 

Mind Channel has effectively structured their course to focus on a handful of common examples of workplace communication skills, that generally any staff member will need. The importance of these skills are outlined alongside a good example of how to display the skills effectively within the workplace, to help provide a clear learning outcome to put into practice. 

Course highlights: Mind Channel's content will help employees become more impactful communicators and build better relationships through communication. They do this by structuring the course around an acronym - CLEAR. Five skills that lead to great verbal communication. 

Learning takeaway: Make your requests powerful. You can do this by providing clarity in your request, whilst ensuring you give your employees an avenue to choose. 

Mind Channel is one of Go1's providers who specialise in bite-sized microlearning. They create short, fun, bite-sized microlearning videos for the modern employee - perfect for mobile, tablet and desktop.

With more than 60 soft skills and professional development microlearning videos in the Go1 Premium library, Mind Channel is a great provider to rely on if your looking for short and sharp videos. Mind Channel is highly recommended for its production and animation quality and is well received by learners. Mind Channel content comes in English and Portuguese!

*Mind Channel content is available to all Global Go1 Premium content subscribers. 

Want more details about Communication courses?

Take just six minutes out of your day, and improve your communication skills!

Course of the week: Communication Skills 

Although adopting and following good ethical practices is vital regardless of the industry, it’s particularly critical for the finance industry. If you have a company that handles investments, banking, loans, or another aspect of this market, there’s no margin for error.

After all, not only does your company deal with people’s money but also their futures. Individuals and businesses that turn to you for assistance depend on the fact that you’ll make the right decisions on their behalf.

Although most companies in the finance industry follow strict internal policies along with government laws and regulations, you know as well as anyone that sometimes, things go very wrong. All it takes is for one employee to make an unethical move to send both the customer and the company spiraling out of control.

Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme is a perfect example. He, along with other members of his staff, became greedy. As a result, they began to do unethical things that resulted in the theft of millions upon millions of dollars from clients, ruined lives, and sent he and his clan to prison. Of course, stealing is just one of the many unethical things that people in the finance industry do.

This story along with many others has created a perception among consumers that the financial industry is unethical. That means you already face an uphill battle in building your customer base and retaining clients you already serve. One of the challenges is this industry encompasses multiple sectors, including securities firms, investment banks, mortgage lenders, insurance companies, mutual fund organizations, and more.

With so many entities making up a massive market, whenever something unethical happens, it spreads like wildfire throughout different news organizations. The other thing to consider is that because the finance industry is so heavily regulated, people quickly identify and report unethical events. 

Before long, people around the world, whether a customer or not, know what happened. As mentioned, there’s no room for error within your organization in that one tiny slip up could prove disastrous. This is why ethical training for your entire staff is crucial.

As part of this industry, it’s imperative that you understand the most common pitfalls. Knowing the difficulties that happen most often will help you and your leadership team stay on top of potential issues, snuffing out fires before they engulf everything. In particular, five things stand out.

Selfishness and Greed – Taking from a quote in the Bible in I Timothy chapter 6 verse 10, “For the love of money is the root of all evil…,” nothing is closer to the truth. Sadly, some people are self-serving, meaning they go after what they want at the expense of others. Once these individuals take that first step toward doing something unethical out of selfishness and greed, seldom do they stop. For people in this category, the goal is to accumulate as much as possible quickly.

Demanding Clientele – Another area in which online training dramatically helps is by defining the responsibilities of your leaders and their staff members. That way, when customers become demanding and push for an employee to bend a little, there’s no temptation. You need a well-defined plan for your organization so that workers know who to turn to when faced with demanding clients. Because there’s a close connection between customers and employees in the finance industry, the goal is to build loyalty from the people who work for your company and gain respect from the clients you serve.

No Moral Compass – Whether lacking sound mentoring from parents or guardians while growing up or perhaps having the inability to look past one’s own perceptions, some people in the finance industry have no moral compass. In fact, some of these individuals are so good at convincing others, and they get away with doing unethical things without anyone questioning them.

Internal Conflict – For your company, it’s vital that you have a viable reward system in place. The reason is that if you give kudos that don’t bridge the gap between your staff’s responsibility and company demands, you promote unethical behavior. In simple terms, if your current reward system creates room for cheating, even a little, there’s a chance of someone acting unethically for monetary gain. Instead, you should implement a system that encourages honesty, perseverance, and integrity as opposed to dysfunction.

Moral Versus Legal Behavior – Do you know someone who always runs the yellow light, picks up the tip change left on the table for the server, or behaves poorly in some other way? While perhaps that individual’s actions are not a crime, they do equate to bad moral behavior. One of the benefits of setting up a training program within your organization specific to ethics is it stipulates punishment for illegal behavior. Without consequences, some people will continue to push boundaries.

Remember, unethical acts aren’t always about stealing large sums of money. This could be something as simple as padding an expense report, using a corporate credit card on a personal dinner date, stretching the number of hours worked, fudging on the truth about what your company can deliver, and so on. 

What it comes down to is you have the responsibility to take control over your company’s success by knowing where risks exist and putting a plan of action in place to address them.

Developing and Maintaining an Ethical Work Environment

Kathie Rotz, CPTM Director of Learning at Honkamp Kreuger might have said it best, “A major reason employees behave unethically is because they don’t value company ethics.” If you want people in your organization to stay on the right path, you need to develop and maintain an ethical work environment. By doing so, you foster positive attitudes among your staff.

The thing with training in the finance industry is it touches on every department. You can select the best courses specifically for your sales and marketing team, the HR group, compliance managers, and so on. Using online courses as the groundwork, you set the stage for what the company expects from everyone, including the consequences of unethical acts.

The goal is to change the mindset of your employees, so they focus on providing excellent customer care rather than the outcome of selling a product, solving a problem, or locking in a major investor. Training proves highly beneficial in this area as well. Through a trusted Learning Management System, you can create a customer-centric training program. 

However, for any training to work the way you want, it has to start with your leadership team. After they complete courses, your HR Manager, L&D Manager, Compliance Manager, and other executives can devise the right approach for their respective teams, as well as lead by example. Also, you need to make training an ongoing part of the organization, especially considering how fast things can change in the finance industry. 

One look at the housing market crash in 2008 is enough to understand the devastation that unethical practices unleash on innocent people. Handing out loans to buyers without the necessary qualifications eventually led to a bona fide recession, costing millions of people their homes and leaving them in financial destitution.

Do you remember the statement about starting with your leadership team? If you want an ethical organization, you have to develop ethical leaders. Although there are several different ways to accomplish this, one involves cross-training. Working as a check and balance system, it keeps people honest and makes them accountable.

Not only that but by cross-training the leaders within your company, you provide them with an avenue for identifying alternative solutions. Instead of believing there’s only one way to do something, they begin to see different perspectives. Over time, training helps them develop powerful thinking and processing skills that lead them to make ethical choices.

At the same time, your management team must develop trusting relationships with their staff members. Using various online training courses, your leaders improve on communication, which makes it easier for employees to come forward when they notice something unethical happening in the workplace.

Instead of getting scared of the consequences of being a whistleblower, employees begin to feel confident their managers will maintain confidentiality and handle the situation in the correct way. With so many incredible online courses, the sky is the limit as to the caliber of the program you can implement in your organization.

You want every employee to know that simply turning a blind eye to unethical behavior is never okay. While an issue may appear to affect just one department, the reality is it impacts the company as a whole. For that reason, it’s critical for every person to look beyond themselves and understand that preventing and correcting unethical actions requires the effort of the entire organization. 

The challenge is that in some instances, an individual who spots someone doing something unethical either feels frightened to come forward or like a disloyal friend. Building confidence in your employees will help give them the courage needed to report suspicious things as they happen. Fortunately, a trusted Learning Management System has a massive library of topics to develop people into strong, dedicated, and confident employees willing to protect the business.

As someone in the finance industry, you probably know all about the Chinese Wall theory. With this, you segregate different divisions within the organization to prevent sharing insider secrets that could shake the company to its core. Instead of having various professionals caught in the middle of a security breach, you protect different areas of the company.

You can think of the Chinese Wall theory as a virtual information barrier that separates employees who have and don’t have information unavailable to the public. As for training, you can provide the same opportunities for every employee, yet at the same time identify courses most beneficial to each separated division.

The last thing you want is for your company to become a headline. As the number of stories breaks about unethical practices in the finance industry, you need to do everything possible to prevent chaos. Because unethical behavior is often the result of a lack of education and knowledge, training is at the heart of the solution.

As an example, when you onboard new employees, not everyone has years of experience working in the world of finance. For that reason, those individuals create some degree of risk. Implementing a training program for all new hires is an excellent way to teach them the basics of finance. You can then rely on your leadership team to offer more training opportunities as the need arises.

With so many courses available on the right Learning Management System platform, you can provide training to every employee, regardless of current understanding and knowledge. While focusing on the fundamentals for your administrative staff, you would hone in on more complex topics for analysts, financial advisors, lenders, and so on.

When talking about the basics, both new and long-term employees should understand the meaning of non-public information. They need to know that sharing employee earnings, talking about bonus programs, and revealing products under development is not just a big “no-no,” but unethical. Keep in mind that people without any experience in the finance industry would have no idea unless you inform them.

A young woman went to work as a bookkeeper for an insurance company. Although she had never worked in this capacity before, she was intelligent and willing to learn. Her husband worked for an agency that did business with this company. While sitting down at dinner one night, the husband made a flippant remark that the wife’s boss should give her a good Christmas bonus because the company did so well that year. 

Keep in mind the husband never mentioned a dollar amount. Without proper understanding and knowledge of the finance industry, the wife shared the comment with her boss the next day at work. Within an hour, the company fired her. Although the husband didn’t lose his job, he came close. One simple comment that contained no hard facts did a lot of damage.

In addition to the wife becoming unemployed and the husband embarrassed, the agency and insurance company’s relationship fell apart. One innocent statement damaged the trust to the point of no return. Had this woman received proper training at the start of her new career about sharing non-public information, she would have laughed things off with her husband and never said a word. While unintentional, what the wife did was unethical in the eyes of her employer. 

For all the training material you need, visit the Go1 website. We offer a comprehensive library of information, prepared and often presented by experts on the topic of ethics in the finance industry.

Why ethics training is critical in the finance industry

Regardless of company size or industry, remaining compliant with current laws and regulations is imperative. At the same time, it’s essential for employees to stay compliant with internal policies and rules. With both, an organization runs smoothly, safely, and effectively. The best way to protect your business is by adopting the right corporate compliance program, one specific to your type of operation.

Compliance programs cover a wide variety of topics. For instance, implementing machine guards as part of a manufacturing process, using a properly rated fire suppression system in an internet data center, installing a ventilation system in a restaurant, or as in the case of Medicaid, saving a minimum of $5 million a year under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 are all examples. Regardless of the situation, an effective program accomplishes multiple goals, including:

Operating in accordance with current laws and regulations

Meeting high professional and ethical standards

Maintaining a culture of integrity and honesty

Identifying compliance issues early on, followed by taking prompt corrective action