The Advantages of Online Trade Compliance Training

A comprehensive comparison of the various trade compliance training options including:

• In-Person Trade Compliance Training Seminars
• Onsite Instructor-Led Trade Compliance Training
• Live and Recorded Trade Compliance Training Webinars
• On-Demand Online Trade Compliance Training

Compliance Training Solutions: FCPA & Anti-Corruption Complete Online Training, Anti- boycott compliance, anti-money laundering compliance, EAR training, ITAR Training, Export Compliance Training, Import Compliance training, Sanctions and Embargoes Training.

Learn More at: https://www.contentenablers.com/site/online-trade-compliance-training-solution/

Transcript

1. The Advantages of Online Trade Compliance Training. Copyright © 2019 Content Enablers Inc.
2. When it comes to trade compliance training, there are several delivery options, including in-person (offsite) seminars, onsite instructor-led training programs, live and recorded webinars, and on-demand online training. As the need for training a larger number of employees on trade compliance increases due to several factors, including a consistent rise in the volume of enforcement actions, companies are increasingly turning towards on-demand online training, and for good reason. Let’s examine the various trade compliance training options: In-Person (Offsite) Trade Compliance Seminars While in-person seminars can be effective, they tend to be costly and have some clear disadvantages in terms of delivering a strong return on investment for companies. Consider this – you need to account for all the following hard costs, along with the potential advantages and disadvantages, of sending employees to offsite seminars: The Costs • Seminar attendance fees: A major factor is the cost of a seminar per employee, which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on the length of the seminar. • Airfare expenses: If the seminar is not in the employee’s home city, the cost of airfare per employee is a significant factor – and, of course, this expense can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on distance and advance booking rates. • Per diem expenses: Another travel-related consideration to account for is the cost per day that each employee will be at the seminar location, and the per diem rate will likely fluctuate by market (e.g., NYC versus Raleigh, NC).
3. Potential Advantages • One-on-one instructor interaction and feedback: The ability for employees to get any meaningful direct interaction or feedback from the instructor depends on the instructor-to-student ratio. • Networking opportunities: Employees may gain some benefits from the opportunity to network with others in their industry. However, the value of this for the company is difficult to calculate. Potential Disadvantages • One-size-fits-all approach: Many vendors offering in-person seminars focus on the trade compliance practitioner. The seminars are rarely role-based and designed to meet the individualized needs of your sales and marketing, engineering, or finance and accounting team members, or other roles involved in international transactions or travel. • Quality of instruction: A seminar’s quality is almost solely dependent upon the instructor’s ability to effectively communicate the material, to keep students engaged, and to stage the material effectively. • Learning style and speed: Not everyone learns the same way or at the same pace. A downside to instructor-led training is that, in larger group settings, the instruction style and pace of learning may not be suitable for everyone involved, and, as a result, some will benefit less than others. • Potential interaction barriers: Another disadvantage of instructor-led training is that some attendees will avoid interacting in group discussions or asking questions for fear of failure, and this will prevent them from getting the most out of the company’s investment. • Loss of productivity: Since employees may be out of the office for one or more full days to attend training, some level of lost productivity should be accounted for. While this is difficult to calculate precisely, it is a factor that must be considered. • Information retention: In-person seminars tend to deliver a deluge of information that can be hard for learners to retain, and they’re often left to review notes and written materials later in order to “connect the dots” on any topics that are not clear after they return to the office.
4. • Auditability: The vendor may or may not issue individualized certificates of attendance, and digital auditability depends on your ability to track attendance, along with the materials covered in an in-house system. One clear disadvantage of offsite seminars is that they do not scale effectively from a financial perspective if you need to train numerous people. Later in this paper, we’ll review some of the trend data in terms of companies investing in instructor-led training both offsite and on, in addition to other disadvantages of instructor-led training in comparison to other delivery methods. Onsite Instructor-Led Trade Compliance Training As with offsite training seminars, it’s important to calculate all the costs and to carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the onsite training delivery method. Let’s consider a few variables when weighing the onsite training option: The Costs • Instruction fees: The cost of onsite training varies, depending on several variables, including the caliber of the vendor, the number of days of onsite instruction, and the volume of takeaway materials to be delivered. Potential Advantages • One-on-one instructor interaction and feedback: Like offsite seminars, the ability for learners to get any meaningful direct interaction or feedback from the instructor depends on the number of people attending the onsite training. • No travel expenses for attendees: Unless remote employees need to be flown in for training, travel-related expenses can likely be avoided. • No per diem expenses for attendees: Similarly, per diem costs are unlikely.
5. Potential Disadvantages • One-size-fits-all approach: Onsite training vendors very rarely provide role-based trade compliance training designed to meet the specific needs of your people in sales, engineering, human resources, or other key roles involved in international transactions or travel. • Quality of instruction: This kind of training is almost solely dependent upon the instructor’s ability to effectively communicate the material, to keep students engaged, and to stage the material effectively. • Learning style and speed: Not everyone learns the same way or at the same pace. A downside to instructor-led training is that, in larger group settings, the instruction style and pace of learning may not be suitable for everyone involved, and, as a result, some will benefit less than others. • Potential interaction barriers: One disadvantage of instructor-led training is that some attendees will avoid interacting in group discussions or asking questions for fear of failure, and this will prevent them from getting the most out of the company’s investment. • Loss of productivity: Like offsite seminars, since employees will be in a classroom setting for one or more full days, some level of lost productivity should be accounted for. While this is difficult to calculate precisely, it is a factor that must be considered. • Information retention: Again, as with offsite learning, onsite training tends to deliver a deluge of information that can be hard for learners to retain, and they’re often left to review notes and written materials later in order to “connect the dots” on any topics that are not clear after the training is over. • Auditability: The vendor may or may not issue individualized certificates of attendance, and digital auditability depends on your ability to track attendance, along with the materials covered in an in-house system. As previously mentioned, later in this paper, we’ll review some of the trend data in terms of companies investing in instructor- led training, in addition to some of the other disadvantages of this training over other delivery methods.
6. Live and Recorded Trade Compliance Training Webinars Over the past 20 years, several vendors have offered live and recorded webinars for trade compliance training. The following are the hard costs, along with the potential advantages and disadvantages, of using live and recorded webinars for training: The Costs • Webinar Fees: The cost of live and recorded webinars varies. Some vendors provide a webinar with unlimited seats and or a discounted group rate, and others charge a set per seat fee for attendance. • Potential Advantages • One-on-one instructor interaction and feedback: In a live webinar format, there is the potential for direct instructor interaction and feedback. However, the quality of this training is highly dependent on the number of attendees. • No travel expenses for attendees • No per diem expenses for attendees • Minimal loss of productivity: Both live and recorded webinars tend to be short format, therefore the loss of employee productivity should be minimal. Potential Disadvantages • One-size-fits-all approach and content quality: Many vendors offering live or recorded webinars focus on the trade compliance practitioner. These webinars are rarely role-based and designed to meet the individualized needs of your sales and marketing, engineering, or finance and accounting team members, or other roles involved in international transactions or travel. Additionally, the quality of the content largely depends on the vendor. While some vendors offer relatively high- quality content geared towards the trade compliance practitioner, there are many that offer low-quality presentations with material reused from webinar to webinar.
7. • Information retention: Again, as with in-person seminars, webinars tend to deliver a deluge of information that can be hard for learners to retain, and they’re often left to review notes and written materials later in order to “connect the dots” on any topics that are not clear after the training is over. • Auditability: The vendor may or may not issue individualized certificates of attendance, and digital auditability depends on your ability to track attendance along with the materials covered in an in-house system. On-Demand Online Trade Compliance Training Over the past 20 years, e-learning technology has advanced tremendously, and there are several vendors offering on-demand online trade compliance training. With that said, not all vendor offerings are equal – there are many differences that separate them. The following are the hard costs, along with the potential advantages and disadvantages of using on-demand online trade compliance training: The Costs • Fees: The cost for on-demand online trade compliance training depends on several factors. The first factor is the volume of content that you’re subscribing to or licensing. A good vendor will provide you with a discount for subscribing to or licensing a larger volume of their content library. The second factor is whether you are subscribing to a “total solution” (e.g., access to a learning management system and the vendor’s content) or simply licensing their content. The third factor is the number of employees that you need to train. A good vendor will provide you with a discount based on volume over a certain number of “seats,” so each additional employee beyond “x” should cost you less money to train.
8. Caterpillar, a global manufacturer of machinery and engines completed a cost comparison for instructor-led vs. online training and found that “even with a population as small as 100 and a class as short as one hour, e-learning was still more than 40% less expensive than instructor-led training ($9,500 vs. $17,062 or $76/learner).” The Potential Advantages • More robust and cost effective: Ideally, your trade compliance training vendor will have a robust library of trade compliance and related compliance content, enabling you to “bundle” all the requisite training for your employees. According to Ellis and Kunzia, in their paper Corporate eLearning Impact on Employees published in the Global Journal of Business Research: “With shrinking corporate budgets, e-learning seems to be the preferred learning method over traditional ones because it provides an adaptable and engaging learning experience for employees.” • Continuous adaptable learning format: Unlike instructor-led training, online providers offer a continuous learning format that allows you to curate microlearning lessons that can be delivered to your employees over time. The best vendors have core content augmented by companion content designed to reinforce and expand the learner’s comprehension of the subject matter, and this content can be curated and delivered based on an employee’s role and specific compliance responsibilities. Further, given the fluid nature of international trade’s regulatory environment, an ideal trade compliance training vendor will offer timely content designed to keep employees abreast of any changes that may impact their compliance responsibilities. In Benefits of eLearning, Kevin Kruse points out that “Like no other training form, e-learning promises to provide a single experience that accommodates the three distinct learning styles of auditory learners, visual learners, and kinesthetic learners…. Additionally, synchronous e-learning is self-paced. Advanced learners can speed through or bypass instruction that is redundant while novices slow their own progress through content, eliminating frustration with themselves, their fellow learners, and the course. In these ways, e-learning is inclusive of a maximum number of participants with a maximum range of learning styles, preferences, and needs.”
9. • On-demand and location agnostic: Employees can access their trade compliance training when time permits based on their workload, and you can provide training economically to a globally distributed workforce. • No travel expenses for employees • No per diem expenses for employees • Minimal loss of productivity: Ideally, the vendor will provide a microlearning format that will enable your employees to take bite-sized lessons over time to minimize any potential loss of productivity. The best vendors will work closely with you to develop a continuous learning plan that will integrate trade compliance learning throughout the year. • Auditability: Most vendors provide customized certificates for students that they receive immediately upon completing their required training, and the students’ completion of the course material and date are tracked in a manner that will satisfy government regulators in the event of an audit. The Potential Disadvantages • Lack of one-on-one instructor interaction and feedback: On-demand online training is asynchronous, thus no live instructor. With that said, unlike instructor-led training, employees can go back and retake part or all of the course at any time in order to ensure that they fully comprehend the material. Summary Whether in-person (offsite) seminars, onsite instructor-led training, live or recorded webinars, or on-demand online training makes sense for your organization depends on a variety of factors that include – but are not limited to – the volume of people that you need to train, the depth and breadth of material that you intend to train them on, the best training method for the material to be covered, and how your organization calculates the return on investment for trade compliance training. The trend data seems to indicate an increasing shift away from instructor-led training. According to Training Magazine’s 2018 Training Industry Report, “some 35.5 percent of corporate training hours were delivered by a stand-and-deliver instructor in
10. a classroom setting—down from the 42 percent reported last year.” The report also stated that “Mandatory or compliance training continued to be done mostly online, with 82 percent of organizations doing at least some of it online and 28 percent entirely online (up from 27 percent last year). Many organizations are starting to understand the true value of role-based training, and this is being reflected in the market. According to an article titled “The Top Corporate eLearning Trends for 2018 in Delivery, Learning, and Content” recently published on elearningindustry.com, a leading website for the e-learning community, the sixth most popular trend in learning for 2018 was “adaptive learning,” which is “the result of taking a learning module from an existing library and customizing it for different companies, or departments, or jobs within those companies. Personalized learning then addresses the specific needs of the learner, making the best use of training time by providing a focused, individualized experience.” According to the same article by elearningindustry.com, microlearning and app-based and mobile learning are also on the rise across the industry. While there are benefits and disadvantages to each delivery method, when it comes to delivering role- based trade compliance training for a large distributed workforce, on-demand online training is the most cost-effective and efficient option available today, whether you’re a midsized enterprise or a global Fortune 500 powerhouse. About the author: Bradley Kabanuk is the founder and president of Content Enablers. As a licensed attorney and compliance practitioner, he has assisted leading aerospace and defense companies around the globe in redesigning compliance training to present employees with practical and interesting content that applies to their job function, location, and compliance responsibility. Prior to founding Content Enablers, he pioneered the development of Export-Link.com, the first web-based solution for managing the complex international trade process.
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