Compliance Training For Employees

Compliance training for employees is the training an organisation gives its whole workforce so staff understand the laws, safety duties and internal policies that apply to their day to day work. It covers what employees must do, what they must not do, and how to raise a concern when something goes wrong.

The legal duty sits with the employer, not the employee. Under the model Work Health and Safety Act, a person conducting a business or undertaking must give workers the information, training, instruction and supervision needed to protect them from risk, and the model WHS Regulations require it to be delivered in a way each worker can readily understand. The positive duty in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 goes further and expects employers to take reasonable and proportionate measures to prevent sexual harassment and sex discrimination before it happens. Training the workforce is one of those measures.

Topics that usually sit at employee level include:

• work health and safety and hazard reporting
• sexual harassment prevention and respect at work
• equal employment opportunity and discrimination
• privacy, code of conduct and acceptable use of technology

New starters carry the most risk because they are learning the job and the rules at the same time. Every new employee must also receive the Fair Work Information Statement, and induction is the natural point to pair that with your own policies and courses.

Content is only half of it. Regulators and courts tend to ask what was delivered, to whom, when, and whether people understood it. That makes completion records and refresher cycles as important as the course itself, so keep evidence of who finished what and when through records management. Obligations vary between states and territories and change over time, so treat this as general information rather than legal advice and check what applies to your organisation.

Browse Sentrient’s workplace compliance training courses to see what employee level training looks like in practice.