Risk And Compliance Courses

Risk and compliance courses are training programmes that cover two connected disciplines: identifying and controlling the things that could harm your organisation, and meeting the legal obligations that apply to it. In an Australian workplace they usually sit across work health and safety, conduct and fraud, privacy, and the governance duties carried by managers and boards.

The risk half has a settled method behind it. Safe Work Australia’s model Code of Practice on managing work health and safety risks, updated in November 2024, sets out the four steps any competent course should teach. Identify the hazard. Assess the risk. Control it, working down the hierarchy of controls rather than reaching straight for a policy or a sign. Then review whether the control is doing what you assumed it would. Following an approved code of practice helps a duty holder show it has met its obligations under the WHS Act and Regulations.

The compliance half varies by sector, which is why generic material so often disappoints. Training written for a listed company talks about board risk appetite and disclosure. Training for a council, a not for profit or an NDIS provider talks about delegations, volunteers and funding conditions. At the governance end, the ASX Corporate Governance Council’s Principles and Recommendations devote an entire principle to recognising and managing risk, and a draft fifth edition went to public consultation in July 2026, so expectations at that level are still moving.

Course content that tends to earn its place includes:

• Hazard and risk identification, and how findings actually reach a risk register instead of a manager’s notebook
• Bribery, corruption and fraud awareness, including the pressure points where it usually starts
• Whistleblower protections and what a worker can expect after speaking up
• How incidents and near misses feed back into controls through a GRC system, so the review step is evidenced rather than assumed

Posts tagged here look at how Australian organisations build, deliver and evidence this training, and where it quietly stops working. Obligations differ across states and territories and change over time, so treat this as general information rather than legal advice and check anything contentious with your adviser. Browse Sentrient’s workplace compliance training courses to see how the risk and compliance topics are structured.