Are you ready to get more from your mandated training investment – more engagement, more cultural alignment, and more impact?
In a time when business practices are under greater scrutiny, checking the compliance box is no longer enough. While most training is designed to meet the legal minimum, SHIFT believes every mandated minute can (and should) do double duty: protect your organization and move it forward.
In this session, we explore how high-performing organizations are turning compliance into a culture catalyst by transforming required training into a powerful driver of psychological safety, empathy, and trust.
See how the training will:
✅ Teach teams to navigate gray areas where real risk hides
✅ Empower managers to lead with empathy and clarity
✅ Build psychological safety across distributed and hybrid teams
✅ Turn compliance touchpoints into moments of trust and transformation
If you are responsible for protecting your people, strengthening culture, and minimizing risk, this conversation is for you.
Watch our webinar below and SHIFT your expectations of mandated training.
Panelists
Ganesh Asirvatham, Market Lead, People Capability, Standard Chartered
Ganesh Asirvatham is a learning practitioner who gained experience at HSBC’s Financial Shared Services before moving to Asia’s largest insurer AIA, then Petronas, and finally Standard Chartered where he now heads the learning function for the Americas. A chance encounter in mandatory learning led to his passion for transforming required training from something feared into something welcomed. Globally, he’s delivered mandatory programs for all 85,000 colleagues across Standard Chartered’s footprint, working to enhance the mandatory learning experience. Within the Americas, Ganesh oversees all aspects of learning and is exploring AI integration to upskill colleagues for the digital revolution. He believes learning practitioners should partner with business leaders to ensure employees have meaningful organizational journeys.
Jean-Luc Charles, VP of People & Culture and DEI, Eileen Fisher
Jean-Luc Charles is a visionary leader with expertise in human resources, organizational development, diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI), executive coaching, and community engagement. He currently serves as Vice President of People & Culture and DEI at Eileen Fisher, Inc., where he guides the company’s HR functions and drives its DEI strategy. Prior to his role at Eileen Fisher, Jean-Luc served as an executive coach at AwesomeLeader.org, where he supported leaders growth, team development, and project execution.
Katherin Nukk-Freeman, Co-Founder & Chief Culture Officer, SHIFT
Katherin is the Co-Founder and President of SHIFT HR Compliance Training and a passionate advocate for building better workplaces. As a dynamic employment law advisor, training instructor, and industry thought leader, Katherin partners with clients to develop and implement learning journeys to educate and evolve workplace culture and incorporate strategies to manage risk, comply with the law, foster an inclusive workplace, and create an overall better workplace with flourishing for all.
Moderator
Karen Byington, Director, Content Development, SHIFT
Karen brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her role as Director of Content Development at SHIFT HR, where she collaborates with a multifaceted team of experts in employment law, social psychology, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), HR, and Learning and Development. Her collaborative approach ensures that SHIFT HR’s training initiatives are not only comprehensive but also tailored to meet the evolving needs of the workforce. Karen holds a DEI certification from Cornell and is a certified Workplace Violence trainer, which underscores her proficiency in addressing critical issues that impact workplace culture, safety, and well-being.
From Mandatory to Meaningful: Making Every Training Minute Count Webinar Transcript
Karen: Hi. Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to our webinar From Mandatory to Meaningful: Making Every Training Minute Count. We’re so glad that you’re able to be here with us today. My name is Karen. I am the Director of Content Development at Shift hr. And for those of you who haven’t joined us in the past, we are a compliance training company that offers high quality e-learning in the areas of compliance and workplace culture. And at shift, we really specialize in delivering interactive, legally grounded training that engages your learners and drives lasting behavior change. And so we’re so glad you’re all here. And before we get started, I just wanna kick it off with a few logistics so everybody knows the lay of the land.
We are providing Sherman HRCI credit. So please check the chat feature. Kristin’s gonna be posting a code for you about halfway through the webinar. speaking of chat feature, we’re gonna use that for any questions or comments that you have throughout the webinar. Please post it there. I’ll do my best to monitor and pose the questions to the panelists. Anything that we don’t get to, we’ll be sure and follow up with you directly after the webinar. If you’d like more information about anything that we discussed today, we’re gonna also follow up with you afterwards to let you know how you can reach out to us to share links of the webinar that you can share with any friends or colleagues that may be interested, in the information that we’re sharing today.
We also encourage you to follow us on LinkedIn. This will help you stay informed about any product launches, future webinars, resources and updates regarding HR compliance and workplace culture. And Kristin’s gonna be dropping that link in the chat for you as well. And she’s going to include some dates in September and October. We’re gonna be having demo days where you can have a free, no obligation demonstration of our harassment discrimination course. and our team will give that demonstration and provide you with lots of information about the benefits of our training. And lastly, we’d very much appreciate if after the webinar you take just one minute to complete a survey because your feedback really does help us, in continuing to provide content that really empowers you to build stronger workplaces. So we appreciate that in advance.
And so now I’m going to introduce all these lovely faces that you see here, today. And again, for those of you that have attended our webinars before, you know that our co-founder and president at Shift HR compliance training is Katherine Nook Freeman, and that she is truly a passionate advocate for building better workplaces. She has 30 years experience as an employment lawyer, an employment advisor, a training instructor, and an industry thought leader. And Katherin really does partner with her clients to educate and evolve workplace cultures. she integrates strategies to comply with the law to foster inclusive workplaces, and as she always likes to say, to create an overall better workplace with flourishing for all. So Katherin, thank you so much for taking the time today.
Katherin: Thanks Karen. Welcome everybody.
Karen: and next, we have Jean-Luc. Charles Jean-Luc is the Vice President of People and Culture and DEI at Eileen Fisher, where he leads the company’s HR functions and drives its DEI strategy. He has a career spanning human resources, organizational development, executive coaching, and community engagement. And he brings a holistic perspective to building workplaces where people and culture can truly thrive. And his journey has included leadership roles and healthcare, nonprofits, consulting, always with a focus on helping organizations and individuals grow together. So we’re so happy to have you here. Thank you, Jean Mu.
Jean-Luc: So glad to be here. Thank you.
Karen: And last but definitely not least, we have Ganesh. he leads the people capability for standard Charter in the Americas, where he oversees learning and development across the region. his global career has spanned banking, insurance and energy before returning to the financial sector where he discovered a passion for transforming mandatory learning into experiences that are engaging in empowering. And today, Ganesh continues to push the boundaries of workplace learning, exploring how AI and digital innovation can upskill colleagues and strengthen the employee experience. And we learned right before we got on Air Live that Ganesh also spent time, teaching. So he has great, you know, first person teaching experience. So thank you so much for being here, Ganesh.
Ganesh: Thank you, Kevin. Thank you all. Nice to meet everybody.
Karen: So today we just wanna kick this conversation off letting you know that we hear from clients all the time about the pressures they feel around compliance training. It seems that there’s never a period when we aren’t all under the gun to figure out how to cut costs. and training is not immune to that. There’s also pressure to reduce the amount of time that employees are asked to take away from their work duties to complete training programs. On the other hand, there also seems to be new training mandates being adopted every year in the area of HR and l and d and your teams have to be on top of ensuring that they’re staying compliant.
On the positive side, there are also, a lot of employees who are seeking training to enhance their skills and become more productive, and more effective in their workplaces. And there are leaders who recognize the importance of improving workplace culture and how it can have a direct impact on the productivity in the bottom line. So at shift, we understand these pressures, and we believe that investing in high quality compliance training really can help you achieve both of these objectives. And we know that when it’s done right, compliance training can not only ensure that you stay on top of requirements and mandates, but also have a real behavior change impact, and strengthen your culture and help teams work better together.
So we’re gonna dive in with our panelists and talk about their experience with compliance training, what they’ve seen work, what doesn’t work, and what they believe is most important when you’re evaluating training and what really makes the training meaningful.
So, we talked a little bit about when I introduced you, but I’d like to know a little bit more, and I think the audience would be curious about what brought you to this area of training and hr. What got you here today, Katherin, do you wanna kick it off?
Katherin: Absolutely. So I am a huge proponent of effective training on various workplace issues. And, and it, it goes back to when I was a partner at a majority owned law firm, literally almost 30 years ago. It was a litigation based firm. And I had the idea that we needed to start doing more proactive training for our clients to help them avoid the litigation. And if they couldn’t avoid the litigation, at least put themselves in the best possible position if they were sued to combat any harassment discrimination claim. So I started up the instructor led employment training practice at that firm.
And then 20 years ago, the first business I co-founded is now the largest woman owned employment law firm on the East coast. I’m on the west coast now, trying to do the same on the West Coast, but one of our main tenets of that law firm was in addition to a litigation practice, we wanna have a really strong proactive counseling practice that does everything to counsel employers to help avoid these litigation claims, especially in harassment, discrimination, and those areas, and including instructor lit training. And so by getting really involved in that instructor led training and being a huge proponent of it, I would encounter many large national international organizations who would say to me, you know, great, you’re, you’re training our top executives and managing directors, a thousand of them on these important topics, but what do we do with the other 30,000 employees, a hundred thousand employees, however many, how do we scale this important messaging to every single person in the organization?
So I said, don’t worry, I’ll come up with a solution for you. And I, I went to the internet and I looked to see, or what kind of training’s available that’s not in person, and I literally must have taken down 20 different companies products. And I looked at every single one over a long weekend, and I went back to my weekend and I said, I really don’t have anything I can recommend that’s nearly as good as the instructor led training, but I’ve got an idea. I’m gonna start a business, I’m gonna start a second company. And so I did just that nine years ago with my Satan co-founding partner, and we started shift HR compliance training with the whole goal of saying, if a company can’t do instructor led training or chooses not to because they have offices everywhere and people in different hours, let’s come up with the next best solution for them and build a training that’s interactive and impactful and relevant, and something that engages the learner so that it’s not just somebody checking the box, spending an hour of their time on payroll, watching a training that means nothing to them. We wanted to be impactful. And, and so that’s why, that’s why I’m doing what I’m doing today at Fifth as well as continuing at the law firm.
Karen: Awesome. Danesh, how about you?
Ganesh: Yeah, so One, I should just say, you know, that, I’ve met so many people in, in hr, and I don’t know anybody who’s actually got into HR by purpose, by everything, single purpose I’ve met, you know, does not have a degree in hr. They, you know, they make it at some point in time, but typically, you know, we somehow land into HR by accident by chance. You know, you move roles, you end up liking what HR does, and you fall into, you know, one function of hr. So I used to be a teacher and I thought English for, for like five, six years. Basically. I beat Somalia, I fought English over there. you know, and, and so happy to know that, you know, HSBC was looking for a language trainer to come in, you know, for the, you know, for the, for the contact center. and so I basically joined the, the team. And then from there I got exposed, you know, to the, to the wider world of, you know, of, you know, of training. So not just language training, but actually what l and D was.
And again, coming, coming from, from Malaysia, coming from that teaching background, the corporate sector was a whole new avenue to me. I had really had no clue what was going out there. I was in a bank and I was being asked to talk about products and asked talk about processes, and I was like, what is going on? Right? but to me, you know, that curiosity really helped me to think about, Hey, maybe I can transform myself. Right? Maybe, you know, maybe, you know, I can kind of push the boundary and see, you know, that corporate training, corporate living government is something, you know, that I really enjoy. you know, and so, and so from there, I really built my career.
And actually, you know, I found myself loving, loving training. And, and then eventually I got into compliance training, mandatory training. and my one goal right now, you know, is how do we make mentally training sexy? Right? That’s it. My one goal, you know, it is gotta be sexy. It’s gotta be fun because no one likes doing it, you know? But if you can make it sexy and fun, oh my God, can you just think of the outcomes? But yeah, so that’s it for me.
Karen: Great. That’s one thing we have not put in our marketing materials is that our training is sexy. We may, We gotta check if that’s legal. You can Vo for us.
Katherin: KH Beth in our that’s attending the webinar says that she’s another, accidental HR professional here. So she was happy to hear you say that.
Ganesh: I, you know, you know, I swear to God, if you, if you to a store and you hit a HR person, I think eight times out of 10, it is somebody who going to HR completely buy happens times. So, yeah,
Jean-Luc: Well, I, I’m gonna add to that eight out of 10, because I fell into HR by accident. although early in my career, I did have somebody who said, oh, you, you know, you might be good at hr, you might be interested in it. And I, I didn’t know enough about HR to really look into that. but I entered HR through organizational development. you know, I had a focus in adult learning and leadership and leadership development, and started out an organization doing that. But, functioning within a, a wider HR team, and through that work and through some mentorship really got, exposure that helped me to see the connection of all of those pieces. And so, you know, for me that the, the connection with HR as a strategic partner versus HR as just a functional partner, is, is is part of what, what keeps me really in love with hr.
Karen: Awesome. So, as you can see everyone, we have a really impressive wealth of knowledge here from all different backgrounds and came from all different areas. So it’ll be a really great discussion. and Katherin, you talked a little bit about what brought you to starting Shift and that you saw the need for more, comprehensive engaging training. Can you describe some of those shortcomings that you were finding, when you were explored what was available at the time?
Katherin: Yes, yes. So, I mean, one of the common criticisms of, of mine and others about the existing training at the time was, it was, it was too obvious. It was, it, some of it was cheesy, others, it was just obvious. OO other trainings were just dumbed down. And so we like to say that our shift training, it, it respects the learner so that the learner respects the training.
And I was also finding as, as a subject matter expert in employment law and hr, like our, our other two panelists, I was finding that the training wasn’t addressing relevant real life scenarios. And as an employment advisor who is regularly advising my clients on different issues and reading on a daily basis about the most common types of employment litigation that’s being filed, I knew that a lot of training was, was missing the mark.
And so what we did at Shift was we engaged the law firm that I founded, and they’re our lawyers. And they basically would sit around a round table every couple of months as we were building training and talk about are what issues are we hearing about from our HR leaders? What litigations are our clients mo most experiencing in employment law? ’cause those are the issues we need to build into training in real time. So is it xenophobia depending on what’s going on in society? Is it racism depending on what’s going on in society? Is it, is it anti-Semitism? Is it transgender discrimination? And so our training, it shifts, keeps up with these societal trends so that when employees take the training, they, they, they have that aha moment. Like, oh, you know what, I, I did just hear somebody say that. I did hear somebody feel they’re uncomfortable in this area.
And so it’s nuanced. It addresses the gray areas, not the obvious areas, the relevant areas, not the relevant 10 years ago areas. And so we really build sophisticated training that hr, HR leaders love because they hear, they hear positive interactions and commentary by their employees. And, and that’s the most important thing that we as HR leaders should be doing. We should be asking our team members, Hey, how did that training hit you? How do you like our training? Because I can tell you, I probably, I, you know, I, I I, I probably do this too often, but I could be on an airplane sitting down next to somebody asking them what they do, and I’ll say, Hey, have you sat through your company’s training? And do you know who the training provider is? And literally, I ask, what’d you think about it? And oftentimes, you know, it’s never happened when they’ve said it’s shift and this is the response. But oftentimes it’s another provider and they say, well, it really, it was really boring and, you know, I just clicked right through it, and I did this and that. And, and I take all that to heart and I bring it back to shift. And we just make sure our training is never a part of any of that. We, we, we want, we want it to be the type of training that HR loves, that learners love. And I’m sure Jean-Luc and, and Ganache field the same way, you know, with the training requirements they have.
Jean-Luc: Yeah. You know, one of the things that, that, that I, that I find in terms of why, the, the challenges and shortcomings of training is because it’s mandated, people just automatically resist. they assume that it’s going to be a certain thing in a certain way. they assume that, look, it’s just a box checking exercise, and I don’t have to really be present. and there’s a disconnect between the training and a sense of purpose and, and the big why, why are we doing this? And then, what’s involved and how does the why connect with my sense of purpose? So that’s often, a hurdle to get to get over.
Ganesh: Yeah, Yeah. You know, a hundred percent. Right. And, and here’s the thing. So, you know, I mean, when I was, when I was, I guess shopping for something, you know, we had looked at it and, and just, you know, just, you know, a few things off the shelf, right? And, and it was, it was training created, I think in like the eighties or nineties. Okay. I swear to God. Like, you know, and, and you know, I mean, I mean, you know, just, just from the visuals and the color schemes and the templates being used, right?
And, you know, you know, when it came to husbandman training, for example, this wasn’t something, you know, that the bank was doing globally, right? So for, so for something global, we really do have that cutting edge type of training, you know, that we do internally and, and we spend time and, you know, and kind of working with, you know, with partners for, but for something which is so market specific, you don’t really want to invest the time, to create something from scratch, right? But, but, but you really want something, you know, which kind of meets your needs, you know? And, you know, and just, and just, you know, and, and you want something, you know, which ultimately is not about, you know, ticking the box, but it actually does something, something meaningful.
And this is where we really struggle in a lot of markets, is that, you know, is that a lot of, you know, you know, off the shop product is something, you know, which is done years ago. The content may be updated, but the visuals still belong in, you know, in, in, you know, in that century essentially. Right? you know, and, and, you know, and there’s a need to really think about, hey, you know, you know, when we have something, you know, how are we thinking about its utilization, its purpose?
Is it, is it making sense? You know, and this is why, you know, it’s, it’s just so good to partner with, you know, with, you know, with vendors, you know, who really understand that, you know, that you can make training fun. Mm-hmm. You can make training exciting. You can make training, if I use the word again, sexy, you know? so that, so that, you know, people feel compelled to repeat, people feel compelled to say, Hey, you know what? I remember that scenario, and it was such a nuanced way of looking at it now that I do have now more questions as opposed to click, click, click, click, click, and then I’m done. You know? Yeah. yeah. But, but those are my thoughts anyway right now, but I’ll kind of add in a bit more.
Karen: And you have so many employees, right? Again, mean, how many employees are you at right now?
Ganesh: So, so here in the US about 1,200, but globally it’s 85,000, you know, so, and, and typically, you know, every employee takes about 15, 16 courses a year. and I get, I get more at it because again, you know, being a bank, there’s just so many regulatory things happening. And I don’t know if you’ve seen any of those regulatory learnings, but let me tell you, you know, Kathleen, man, they are not fun at all. They’re not sexy. They’re not sexy. They’re very, very dry up, you know, and the key really, you know, has been thinking about how do we, how do we convert, how do we convert something which is dry and fundamentally, you know, not less, you know, not like, exciting, you know, into, into, into something, you know, which makes sense. Yeah. And which you actually enjoy going to. So, yeah.
Karen: Thank you. So what are the risks? So if a company were to say, we’re just gonna go at the bare minimum you know, we don’t care off the shelf, what are the risks that they’re taking, like legally, culturally, reputationally, when you go for the bare minimum and don’t care about quality?
Ganesh: So if I can just reference, you know, two things which have happened in the past, let’s say month and a half, you know, we’re talking about conduct. So we have the, we have the Coldplay event, which I think has gone, has gone, has gone viral. We’ve also heard about, you know, about what’s happening in, in, at, Nestle as well, right? And so, and so we’ve seen, we’ve seen the, you know, the wider implications, you know, when you don’t embed what it means to actually lift the values that you have as an organization, right?
We talk so much about, you know, things like, the code of conduct, you know, entering, you know, that you comply, that you understand. But I think sometimes people don’t really understand as in like, as in like, you know, they kind of go to the content, but it’s not being embedded. You, you don’t really understand what are the implications, what happens, you know, when you kind of go against, you know, you know what, you know, what we expect from individuals, you know, especially, you know, when you, you know, when, you know, when you think about values days, right? yeah.
So, so I think, I think, I think, you know, that’s where, you know, that’s where, that’s where, that’s where the risk is. but you also don’t want to be seen as policing people and saying, Hey, don’t do that. Right? it’s, it’s getting that balance, you know, between how you do and what you do are both equally important, right? as a bank, we have financial targets, and we want people to hit those targets, but the way that you do it is also equally important. And so, and so what I need, you know, is I need, I need training. I need the experience that allows somebody to say, Hey, this makes sense to me.
Katherin: I just wanna add to a point you just made, which is such a good one. You don’t wanna police people through the training. You don’t want people to feel bad about themselves through the training, because it’s human nature to then repel and turn off Exactly. And stop. Exactly. And we want people to listen. We want people to learn. And so, you’re exactly right. It’s, it’s all about the approach and finessing that learning and development. So that’s a great point. Thank you.
Jean-Luc: Hundred Percent. Yeah, I was gonna add to that, that, if you’re not able to, if you’re not able to make that connection, then, employees are really approaching your training, your mandatory training from a check the box mentality. and that’s gonna lead to low engagement. It’s gonna lead to very little actual learning, because, you know, the basis of adult learning is that adults will activate on whatever they sense is important to that. So their bodies may be there, but if they can’t connect it, if they can’t tie it in, then they’re not gonna actually take it into any transfer of learning into any real life scenario.
so then you’re missing out on cultural impact. You’re missing out on actually getting, energy from the learning. You’re missing out on any connection to values. you’re missing out on people actually bringing their best. So that, that training opportunity is really, in some ways, a two-way pathway. You’re either gonna get, you know, a, a nice bounce off of that experience, or you’re actually going to, in some ways be eroding, unfortunately through the experience of sitting through something that you’re just kind of checking the box in and saying, man, I’m wasting my time. Why am I here? Why am I doing that?
Katherin: I, I love that a mindset and approach. ’cause I view it exactly the same way. The, the compliance, if we’re talking about preventing harassment and discrimination, the compliance issues and risk management issues, that, that’s just the baseline. That’s where we’re starting. But we’re using this opportunity where we have every employee on the payroll while they’re taking this training, and we don’t wanna just make sure they understand what the rules and role roles are. We wanna use this as a culture build, right? How, how much can we get out of the time that they’re sitting through this discreet amount of training? So, so I love that. And, you know, again, as an employment lawyer, I see that now more than ever, the risks of not using this as an opportunity to manage risk and build culture, that the risks are real and the potential costs are high.
And, and I mean, in, I think the, a three year period, from 2021 to 2024, for example, EEOC discrimination charges jumped 44% with 89,000 new charges filed. And that was through 2024. It was before the new administration even took over. And the slew of executive orders and the new EEOC guidance and the social discourse and the court cases where you have employees divergent in their perspectives in our workplaces, and some upset that DEI is being pulled back and some happy that DEI is being pulled back and sharing their opinions. And so there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of tension in the workplace. So now more than ever, we can use this mandatory compliance training as a way to dig deeper, build culture, create these, these workplaces where there is a, an emphasis on, on, on flourishing for all. And, and making sure everybody’s really well educated about every aspect of, for example, harassment discrimination. So making sure that managers understand that retaliation, if they act a certain way, that accounts for almost 50% of all the charges that they need to understand that count concept loud and clear.
And, you know, I also like to say in many different ways, I say it about your health, and I say it about workplace training. You either pay now or you pay later, and you’re gonna pay a heck of a lot later than you are now being proactive, putting preventative steps in place, using high quality training to inform and educate and bond your employees than you are if you let your organization slip into more disarray. And again, as an employment advisor who’s been doing this for decades, I can tell you the companies that are well run, the HR teams that are committed, the cultures that are the strongest, they have the least amount of employment litigation than those that aren’t run that way.
So, whether you’re a small business or a big business, it’s, it’s, it’s really important for so many reasons that we get this right.
Jean-Luc: Yeah. You, you really need to tie, tie your compliance work into your big picture. Why? And, and, you know, it’s a challenge for us as, as, HR leaders, learning leaders, compliance leaders to really make that connection. Because sometimes people are very much, having a time to make the donuts mindset, right? Yeah. So just on the task, but it really is up to us to have that lift that says, Hey, how does this connect? how might it have real, workplace impact? How do we, see and, and test and understand the experience in our training cycle and people’s experiences in their daily interactions, and then what do we bring back? so to make sure that, that what people are training upon is really relevant across various contexts and not just locked in. and, and it is kind of our role to continue to open that aperture for people, so that they’re not just locked into, to, again, checking the box.
Ganesh: You know, I think, you know, one of the biggest things we can do, right? And, and what I found useful, you know, here at Center Charlotte, you know, is that when you have leaders with, you know, referring to scenarios that are mentioned in training assigned to, to employees, that makes a huge difference. Yeah. Because one, that leader has gone through the content himself or herself, and they found something so relevant, you know, that they want to bring it up and say, Hey, you know, that’s a great piece of learning. I really picked up on a few things. I, you know, and that made me think a bit deeper, right? That connect, that leader, that connect down to everybody else makes a huge impact as opposed to leader saying, oh, man, are you doing that training again? Yeah. You know, it’s just so boring and, you know, let’s just kind of go past it, right? And, and, and, you know, and you need that messaging to come, right?
But that’s why the content has to be engaging, right? The content has to be there, it has to be something, you know, that makes somebody say, you know what? Wow, that was really good.
Jean-Luc: And, and to me, Ganesh, that’s a sign that the content is engaging, that it’s relevant if you’re seeing leaders themselves reference the content, or if you’re seeing it kind of come around again, if you’re seeing that, you know, that they feel like their time was respected, that the time that they took to do the training, and that in some ways that they were experiencing an invisible partnership, right, with a training partner. So to me, that’s a, that’s a great sign.
Karen: Yeah. I love that invisible partnership. Yeah. Great.
Ganesh: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent, hundred Percent.
Karen: And you’re both touching right on, like leading into what my next question even was is can you explain a little about what you mean by, the content being engaging and relevant? Like, what do you see in a training itself that says, this is engaging and this is relevant to my workplace?
Ganesh: So I think, you know, especially just given what we’re talking about recently that has been training, you know, it, it, it’s, it’s not possible to list out every single scenario in the world that you as an employee can undergo. It’s not, you know, it’s, it’s not possible. You could spend eight hours, you know, having, you know, this very expansive list about, you know, every single thing that can go wrong or things that you should do or shouldn’t do, right? That’s not the case at all.
What we want is, you know, if you want content, you know, that make you know that, that allows learners to think, and understand, you know, that, you know, that these are the gray areas and these are, and these are areas in which are kind of black and white. but there’s so much judgment that goes into this, right? And the whole idea here, you know, is that, is that we empower employees to use their judgment. we want them to understand what the laws are, what the protections are, you know, you know, what is, you know, how do we keep you safe? How we keep organizations safe. but, but, you know, but we also want you to think, to think and, and to use a judgment and to understand, you know, that you do have recourses, you know, if, you know, if you have questions about what has happened, essentially, right?
But, but to get you to that state, The scenarios that you see, they just need to be nuanced. Mm-hmm. They need to be something that your average employee is undergoing, will undergo, has undergone, you know, in x number of years of working anywhere in the world, right? all of us have been working long enough, you know, we’ve seen so many examples of micro behaviors that by itself, you know, you know, seems innocent, you know, but when taken as you know, as a pattern of behavior, you’re thinking, oh, wow. You know, and, and then, you know, when you watch content that emphasizes that, then the aha movement, you know, strikes
Jean-Luc: And, and this, this sense of partnering in some ways for, from a, from an employer perspective, you, you want your learning partner or your content provider to be, to, in some ways support you in developing the kind of mindset you want to see in your employees. So, to, to, to your point, Ganesh, you, you’re not gonna, you’re not going to be able to repeat every single possible scenario. Exactly. So if somebody’s sitting through content that is getting them engaged and getting them to think, then they develop a kind of mindset, and then they can begin to improvise in the places where they’re finding themselves. and then they don’t kind of fall on the other side, Katherin, where now we’re talking about, here’s the cost of that behavior, right? Yes. because they just couldn’t navigate through the nuance of a moment because the, the content that they experienced was so, in some ways black and white, that it didn’t give them the skillset, because most things are actually not black and white.
Ganesh: Exactly. Right. You know, so many things. I mean, like, I mean, like, I’ve seen content, which is so black and white, you know, that no matter where you are, you know that this is wrong, outrightly wrong. What we need to know is we need content, you know, that, that makes you think and go like, geez, you know, you know, have I been conditioned by social media? And, you know, and just by and just by media in general to think that that is actually okay, or, you know, that’s actually not okay. And maybe, I don’t know, you know, so, you know, so you know, if that, if that thought process happens, I think that is so exciting.
Katherin: Yeah. And we call that at shift. We call that creating that aha moment. Aha moment, yeah. Like where someone didn’t realize something before, and then through our training. Now they do. Because you’re right, that’s what makes it interesting when people see something or hear something or learn something that they haven’t learned before on that, huh. It makes absolute sense, but they never thought about it before. So that, that both, I agree with both of what you’re saying, for sure.
And then if I can add, you know, some of the other things that, that I think are important to incorporate into the training, and especially because we try to put ourselves just like we want our training to have our learners put themselves in the shoes of their colleagues. We at shift try to put ourselves in the shoes of the HR and l and d leaders who we work with. So we want the training to be easy for them, easy to administer for them, easy to roll out, because the feedback they get is positive, easy for the learners to utilize just that time needed. So that if you’re a non-supervisory employee, you’re taking only a course, that is the length you need. If you’re a supervisor, supervisory employee, you’re taking the length that you need. If you’re an employee in a mandated state, it’s whatever that state requires. Whereas, you know, sometimes I’ve seen content that it’s one size fits all, regardless of whether you need it or not. So we’re all about what does our learner need? What does our HR or l and d leader need? And let’s create the course that that matches that.
And then, you know, Ganesh, as, as you mentioned, training should be nuanced. They should go into the gray areas. I completely agree there. and you wanna make sure that your training does just that. And then Jean-Luc, you mentioned like the collaborative approach, and I, I, too, I’m a collaborative person, whether it’s with our internal team or with our clients, I believe we can all make each other better. And so what we try to do at shift is, is everything we can to collaborate with our clients to make sure that they get exactly what they need in terms of customization and feel related to the course. So, so you’re spot on with all of your commentary, for sure.
Karen: Yeah. And I, Katherine, I just wanna add, one of the other things I think that we do really well, in our courses is that taking into account that every learner is different, and when they come to the course, they have different perspective, they have different personalities. And so we offer different solutions to complex situations. So not everyone is going to have, you know, the mindset or the wherewithal to speak up in the moment, but there may be options where they can do or say something after the fact. And so that’s one example of ways in which we look at this from multiple perspectives, as a nuance to say, this may be an approach for you that will work really well in this situation, but someone else may feel more comfortable approaching it this way. So within the parameters that are, you know, the legally compliant way to respond to a situation, there may be different ways in which different personalities may be able to approach something. So having it designed so that this can really speak to all different types of people in recognizing situations that have affected them and seeing themselves in ways in which they can respond.
And Karen, do you and Jean-Luc and Ganesh wanna share any examples of like, that collaboration? Is there anything you can think of?
Ganesh: Yeah, I think, you know, a hundred percent, right? I mean, I mean, for me, you know, just working with Shift, you know, working, you know, working with Anne and the team has been, you know, has been, has been so exciting, right? Because, it, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s about taking, it is about taking content and then, and then, and then thinking about how it reflects what we as an organization are also looking for, right? you know, that partnership, you know, that working together, thinking about, you know, how do we, how do we get a bit of, you know, a bit of financial, you know, into, into, you know, into the content. You know, how do we get it rolled out in time? You know, how do we, how do we ensure, you know, that we have a successful, you know, launch of that product internally, right?
You know, and, and, and, and, you know, what do you want, you know, if you want that seamless partnership, right? You want, you know, you want partners, you know who, I mean, honestly speaking, you know, who respond to you all the time that, that responsiveness is, I think you just, I just, I think you just can’t put, you just can’t put a value on that. You know, having, having, you know, having someone come back to you straight away, you know, you know, and someone who’s, you know, who’s able to jump on a call whenever you need ’em, jump on a call, you know, is, is just, is just phenomenal, right?
It just means, you know, that, that when something occurs to you, you know, you really have it, it feels like as if you, you know, you are working with somebody internally. That’s how the experience lands, like, right? And that’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it? So, yeah. Yeah.
Katherin: And, you know, you just made me think of something that I hadn’t really thought of before, but I know, ’cause I know how you’ve been working with our team, it’s probably also a benefit that the team members you’re working with on our part, they’re subject matter experts. So we’re not exactly, not just a training company that offers a hundred different trainings, and our team members, like Karenand content know a little bit about each one. Like, you could talk to Karenfor hours about customization and you speak the same language, right? So that’s probably really helpful and aids in the collaboration between you and, and shift as your training partner.
Ganesh: Exactly. But, but also I could just add, right? So, so for me, having moved over from Malaysia to the us I have, I have to admit that I do not have that familiarity, you know, with, you know, with the legal requirements, right? So number one is I really want a partner who will tell me yes, that, hey, you are protected, right? you know, and the fact, you know, is that shift is owned by a law firm and that you are, and, and that, and, and that, and that your lawyers, and that you have the such expertise, you know, that you are constantly updating this whenever there’s a change in policy so that we remain compliant. That’s actually phenomenal.
Katherin: And, and just to clarify, actually, shift was co-founded by two employment, Sorry, co-founded, sorry, my bad. which, but to your point, you know, we, we like to say we’re co-founded by subject matter experts. We’re run, I’m the president of Shift, so it’s run by a subject matter expert in HR and employment law, and then we’ve got subject matter experts on the team. So, so you hit the nail on the head, like that’s what, that’s what we love about Shift and, and how,
Ganesh: Yeah, exactly. But I never have to worry, you know, if your content is gonna be out of date, is someone looking at it? Is someone updating the content? Because from a time that we work together, you know, I, I, I get, I get updates, right? So I know, you know that I’m safe, right? And, and, and that, and that really, really matters.
Katherin: Yes, Exactly. We got That. We got you got, you got our background. Exactly. You got It. A hundred percent.
Jean-Luc: And Jean-Luc, I think you were going to say something too.
Yeah, I was going to, you know, one example for us is, right now we’re working through some new laws on workplace violence prevention. and our partnership has really led to thinking about where’s this applicable? What con, current content do we have? you know, what’s our big why, what are we trying to achieve?
So as the, as the landscape changes, being able to come back and have those dialogues and those conversations and figure things out, and, and some of, you know, we, we get, we get, we get, the flagging from Schiff saying, Hey, this is happening. How do you wanna respond to it? Here’s where it fits into your existing, here’s where you might want to think about supplementing.
So that’s, that’s what I mean by that sense of collaboration and really respecting the big why. And for us as an organization, we’ve got a corporate team, we’ve got warehouse employees, we’ve got stores. so each of those environments and each of those, employee bases may need different things based on the state that they’re in, local issues that are happening, what’s happening specifically in a municipality, may or may not impact somebody in a different state. So being able to think that through, is an important piece for us.
Karen: So true. I know that we always appreciate working with the both of you, our teams. It’s been such a great collaboration because you’re so, to have someone that’s so sophisticated, and I guess, for a lack of a better word, so caring about what you do and wanting to put the best out there, it’s such a pleasure to work with you.
One of the things that I wanted to bring this back, we were talking about sort of what are the, the nuance, the gray area, what makes training actually, you know, really meaningful? And so I’m wondering if you might touch on the importance of building empathy into training. So we, we, it’s a word that we hear around a lot, but what impact do you think is, you know, building empathy into the program, and how does that impact a learner?
Jean-Luc: Yeah, for me, it, it, it goes back to connecting with the y as a mission-driven organization, our culture is really connected to this sense of people relationship. So people, product, planet, like all of those are important to us. And we see the interconnection of all of that. So if we want people to feel, an amazing experience in our clothes, we think that our employees need to feel that same amazing experience in the entire service cycle that brings about our clothes. so, and then that’s inclusive of our mandatory training. It’s inclusive of, you know, cultural moments. It’s inclusive of all of these micro steps that create that, and that contributes to culture.
So being able to go into, a training that yes, is about the legal boundaries, but it’s framed within what kind of culture do we want to have? What kind of relationships do we want to have? How do we want to prevent certain things and certain experiences, not just the, why is this a no, but like, really thinking about the, the, the bigger connection. So to me, it’s, it’s that kind of mindset that builds empathy.
Ganesh: Yeah. You know, I left that, right. talking about mindset, and this is something, you know, that as an organization, you know, we, you know, so as a bank dealing with many, many clients, we always talking about the user experience, right? All the use banks, you know, thinking about, Hey, you know, do my bank just care for us? You know, can we access money easily? Can we do stuff right? You know, you know, as, you know, as, as you can.
And then, you know, but, you know, but then do we think about our employees as being users, right? Mm-hmm. And, you know, and you, and you know, and here you are subjecting people to 15, 16, 17 types of trainings a year, which are all mandatory by the way. Okay. you know, have we put the user at the center of the experience, right? you know, and, and, and if you, if you, if you haven’t done that, then what have you done? You really have created training just for sake of having training, because, you know, it’s regulated, it’s required, you know, we just have to have it, you know, the, you know, it’s, you know, it’s something, you know, that every market needs to have, basically. And so we have it, you know, but we don’t really care, how it lands with you. We don’t really care, you know, if you pick up anything from it, all we care is that you’ve gone through it, and therefore we have, you know, we can say, yes, you know, Jean-Luc, you’ve gone to the training. You therefore understand this content if, and you know, and done, right?
And, and that just commonly misses the point, isn’t it? Right? you know, and so, and so the empathy aspect really has to put the employee experience at the center of all that you do, right? and, and so while I think people sometimes, you know, take, take training, you know, you know, online training, mentor training, e-learnings, you know, to be, to be that silver bullet that solves everything, right? Because thinking of scale, you’re thinking, oh, you know, if I do this in person, man, just think about, you know, how many man hours I would spend here.
I think, I think that thinking just needs to change completely, right? Every single time you put your employee to an e-learning, that’s an investment in their time. And, you know, and if you are asking every, invest your time in that e-learning, then that experience needs to be as good, if not better, than having a real life person talking to you about that topic, right? That training just needs to give you that information, right? You want to feel like, wow, you know, I really understand the content. It speaks to me, right? As somebody who is, you know, who’s, you know, who is trying to, you know, trying to make sense of, you know, how this company functions, how this market functions. It, it really needs to speak to me. You know? And I think, you know, that’s where, you know, it’s, it’s great to really find content that does that.
Katherin: You, you’re just making me think of something else that, you know, I, I’m a person who hates to waste. I don’t waste anything. If I am done with clothing, I make sure I donate the clothing so somebody else can use it. If I order a meal, I ate everything on my plate because I don’t wanna waste. And if I’m gonna conduct training, I don’t want it to be a waste. I want, I don’t want to check the box. I want it to be as impactful as possible, so there’s no wasting of time. Right? No wasting of resources.
So completely agree with, with both of what you’ve said, in terms of empathy, I am, I’m a huge proponent of incorporating empathy into our courses because it makes the courses more impactful and more effective. I mean, there’s, there’s research out there, significant research that shows that empathy can in fact be a motivating factor in impacting behavioral change. And I have read up a lot about empathy, and I know that only 10% of our population is born naturally empathetic, and the rest of us either learn it through our parents or coaches, or teachers or impactful training, or we don’t. And my thinking is, I want as many, and, and the two businesses that, that I run, I want as many empathetic people as possible, because that creates a flourishing environment for all.
And so we really try, like at shift, we have a social psychologist with a PhD who takes a look at all our courses to see if we’re adequately addressing empathy and building it into our courses so we can impact that, that positive change we’re talking about. And we incorporate storytelling into our courses that the learner can put themselves in the shoes of another employee who may be experiencing something that they deemed to be harassing or discriminatory. And then we kind of do a rewind in the course and educate the learner on what went wrong and what they could actually do differently to create the opposite result and create flourishing for their colleague who they, they likely care about and didn’t intend to harass or discriminate against, but didn’t necessarily have the empathy or understanding to understand how their words were falling on their ears, how their conduct was being in, interpreted by them.
So when you can put employees into the stories and see how they can do better, most people want to do better and commit to doing better, especially if you do it in a way, like we said, you’re not policing them, you’re educating them, you’re enlightening them. Exactly. Right. So I, I agree with, with everything you both have said,
Karen: The one other piece I’ll share is that we did a lot of research before, our last redesign and, iteration of the course, talking to our clients across the broad spectrsaying, you know, what do you really wanna see in a next round of training? What’s really important to you? And the topic of empathy came up in a way that we heard over and over that we wanna see the long-term impact of behaviors on people. So it makes it feel really real when sometimes people say like, oh, this situation happened, it was handled, and it’s over, as opposed to somebody working in an environment where little things may happen over time, and how did that impact this person’s career? How does it impact, you know, their experience at this workplace? So it may not just be one event, but one event, and then something else happened. So they felt like that empathy really, is generated by being able to see like a long-term impact. So we’ve incorporated that into our training, which I think is really unique.
Great. So, one other piece I just want, we have about 10 more minutes left. and I thought if you wanted to share some experience that you have with any changes or results that you’ve seen since shifting and really focusing your career on providing more impactful training and meaningful training models, like what impact have you seen on your organizations?
Ganesh: Well, I think, you know, for us at Sunshine, right? it’s been, I think, I think we’ve been on this journey, you know, on, on just revamping the way that we look at, we look at mandatory training, and, you know, and, and so, so, you know, since, since we’re kinda London based, we actually have pilot, you know, with, you know, with a great, you know, with a great partner in, in London, to actually create, to create really high quality content videos. I think we spend almost like 150 k or something, you know, and, and, and you know, and we use the office and we use, you know, actual employees and you know, and you know, and paid actors as you know, and, and, and that kind of combo basically.
But, but what it ends up having, you know, is that you, that you get this shot, the short, like seven, eight minute, you know, clips that, you know, that really helped to anchor a lot of things, you know, that we wanna talk about, especially from, you know, from like a conduct perspective, right? making, making the investment, you know, on a yearly basis by the way, right? is something, you know, that gets everybody excited about, Hey, you know, wow, what, what new high quality videos, you know, do you guys have in store for us for this year as we know what you had last year?
And so now we actually have individuals, leaders, employees looking forward to the new content, right? which is never the case, right? Because honestly, nobody looks forward to doing military content because again, military content is dry, boring, unfun, unsexy. and so no one says, oh my God, you know, I can’t wait to do it again. Right? No one ever says that, right? And so, and so the question here, you know, is how do we get someone to look forward to that, right? That’s the shift that we are looking for, you know, because if you are excited, just like, just like, you know, just like the, the newest season is dropping on Netflix, what we want, you know, is we want people to say, the newest season of this content is dropping this year, so why don’t you go check it out? You know, because you are really gonna enjoy it, right? you know, so that shift, I think, I think is a game changer for us, you know, for the entire organization. you know, and, and, and, and, and now thinking about how you can build on that,
Jean-Luc: That, that’s amazing. I, I think for us, similarly in terms of journey, I think we’re on a journey. and the journey for us is, again, it’s about, mindset. It’s about empathy, it’s about making that connection. It’s about helping our employees see that the required training is not something that’s against them, but is really supportive overall, it’s a contribution to the culture.
You know, we’ve been, our founder Eileen talks a lot about what is mine to do, what is yours to do, what is ours to do? and that sense of, mutuality and contribution, and so helping, our culture internally understand and absorb that, and having a, more meaningful relationship to this. to your point, regular Okay, it’s coming up again, kind of, of, of a moment.
So the more, you know, the more we can have those, those conversations, the better. Even through this webinar, you know, I’m thinking about how am I going to be able to have those conversations with our VPs, with our, with our leaders. we’ve already started seeding in our newsletters, talking about, hey, we’re coming up on a season of, of, of mandated, trainings. Here’s why. So we’ve already been seeding the why. Here’s why this is important to us as an organization, as a culture. We’re, you know, we’re a small, in some ways a small, very close knit organization. And so being able to speak into that, why, it, it is so valuable for us, but, but it’s been great even through this webinar.
Karen: Yeah. Have you been able to use this kind of training to reinforce your organization’s values and brands? I mean, you both work for organizations with well-known, you know, brand names, so have you been able to reinforce that through the training in any way? Oh, yeah.
Ganesh: A Hundred percent. Right. I mean, I mean, end of the day, you know, you know, our, our brand, I mean, you know, our values are, you know, do the right thing, never settle budget together, right? And, and, you know, and, and it’s a kind of content, you know, that you really want to kind of, you know, highlight, you know, that you wanna embed, you know, and, and, you know, yeah, for sure. It, it, it just speaks to essentially, you know, ensuring you know, that, you know, that whoever that we partner with, you know, has the same values and, you know, and that, you know, and that the content, you know, really kind of showcases, you know, in so many ways, you know, the values, you know, that we stand for as an organization. So, yeah, a hundred percent.
Jean-Luc: Yeah. One of our value touchstones is, the health of the whole. and again, it fits so well into, what it means to take care of the health of the whole through our regular, regular, training opportunities. But it’s, it’s about building capacity, building skillset, building mindset within that allows us to then take care of the health of a whole. So if we have people who are approaching their interactions in a healthy way, I mean, these laws are here for a reason, right? so if we have people who are approaching their interactions with each other in a healthy way, then that contributes overall to our values.
Karen: So true. So we are almost at the end of our hour, but I wanna give, if any of you have any last thoughts or anything you felt like you didn’t get to say or share, before we wrap it up, Ganesh, Katherine, Jean-Luc, anything else?
Katherin: We just like to say, I, I think Ganesh and Jean-Luc have been amazing panelists. You’re exactly the type of leaders who I love working with, who I think bring your organizations next level. Your organizations are so lucky to have you and your mindset and your passion. and, and I, you know, I, I agree with so many of the very valuable ideas that you’ve shared. Like, let’s use this as an opportunity to, to not check the box, but to take our organization’s next level to build our workplace culture, not just protect it and create an environment where there’s flourishing for all. And I, I think all of us on this call are completely aligned in that regard. So deep thanks for joining us. Very deep. Thanks.
Jean-Luc: And I just say, you know, oh, yeah, go ahead. No, I was gonna say, I, I appreciate even the approach to this webinar, to raise the question, right? To raise it in people’s mindsets that compliance training doesn’t have to be check the box, it can be strategic, it can be aligned to culture. So I, I would encourage any HR leader, any learning leader, to bring that approach and that mindset as they look for partners to, to, with which, with whom to do their training.
Ganesh: Yeah, a hundred percent. Right. Please, you know, feel free to connect with us on LinkedIn or whatever it is. you know, I just think, you know, that there’s so much room scope for compliance feeling to really grow. You know, it, it doesn’t need to be something that people fear, but it needs to be something, you know, that people look forward to, right? That’s the, that’s the, that’s the, you know, I mean, that’s the goal that we’re looking to gonna get to, right? You know, that we don’t, you know, we want, we want the pull factor, not the push factor.
You know, and, and I, and when we can get there, then we know, you know, that we successfully, you know, have engaged, you know, with the hearts and minds of our employees. I also just wanna say, you know, that, each and every experience I’ve had with Shift, you know, has been, has been a phenomenal experience. You know, it, it just, it just such, such genuine conversations, such genuine encounters, you know, it, it, it just been nothing, but, you know, but a but a complete pleasure, you know? And, you know, and being asked to be on this webinar, you know, was a great experience as well. And so we just say thank you very much to everybody involved in making this happen. especially, you know, Karen, thank you so much for your hard work. You know, it’s been, it’s been absolutely brilliant. so yes, can, and sorry, and Kristin too as well for, for helping to push. So yes, a hundred percent. Thank you so much
Katherin: Dynamic duo based, certainly I Would agree with that. I would agree.
Karen: Well, thank you. I thank you so much for making my job so easy. You too, are wonderful, Katherin. It’s always such pleasure to get to spend an hour with you, even if it’s over Zoom. but we really appreciate every, everything that you guys offered today, and we hope that this discussion got you and the audience thinking about how compliance training can spark real culture change for you and your organizations.
I encourage you to sign up for our demo days. Please take a look at, you know, the training that we’ve been talking about and how we really, have stepped up to bring meeting, and, and true engagement into our courses. those dates are gonna be September 25th and October 1st. and Kristin’s doing a great job of putting all of those links into the chat.
We’re also gonna follow up with a recording of this, so feel free to share with your friends and your colleagues. there’s gonna be that survey, it really helps us, improve these webinars and make them more meaningful for you. and we’re gonna have a link into LinkedIn, so new products that we’re bringing out, new webinars that we’re having, all of that information, you can follow us on LinkedIn. So I think you all,
Katherin: And I would just add that you two were so amazing. of course Karenand Kristin too, but our two panelists that we’re, we’re gonna be banging down your door again to be future panelists. So get ready.
Ganesh: I love to join again, this thank so much
All: Afternoon Everybody. Thanks everybody. Thank You. Thank you. Thank you for joining. Take care.
