Repurposing long-form content for year-round messaging

A good way to build a personal brand online is to create long-form content on a regular basis, and then splice it and repurpose the shorter pieces on LinkedIn, X, Tick-Tock, etc.

The same principle applies with ethics and compliance messaging. During the year, you’ll update your code of conduct and a few policies – your long-form content. Then you can create micro-messages or micro-learnings based on that content and publish those every week. Surely your code of conduct contains at least 52 “insights” that you can share with your employees, right?

Good faith

This LinkedIn post by Adam Balfour got me thinking: how would I include the concept of good faith in a corporate policy without using the term “good faith”?

To me, an action taken in good faith is one that filters out dishonesty and bad intent. So instead of saying “employees must report their concerns in good faith,” we could say, “employees are expected to report concerns they believe to be true and not solely with the intent to harm someone.”

Do you agree? Would you define the concept differently? Let me know in the comment section below.

Are you OK?

Many employees don’t report the wrongdoing they observe at work.

Nearly half of those who have the courage to speak up also experience some form of retaliation shortly thereafter. How likely are they to give the company a second chance and report this retaliation?

Very unlikely.

This is why ethics and compliance (E&C) teams should routinely follow up with reporters, both during and after an investigation. They should specifically ask if the reporter is experiencing any kind of retaliation and take immediate action if they are.

An employee who has been retaliated against but feels supported by the company is likely to become an advocate for the E&C program. In contrast, an employee left unprotected and isolated will discourage others from speaking up.

Simply asking, “Are you OK?” is not only the human thing to do but could also preserve the integrity and effectiveness of your E&C program.

You’re treating the wrong body part

Sometimes the pain in your left knee is caused by a misalignment in your right hip. Treating the knee pain is futile.

Similarly, sometimes bank employees secretly open unauthorized accounts because they are pressured by aggressive sales quotas. Firing them for opening those fraudulent accounts is just as futile (Wells Fargo fired over 5,000 of them).

Is there a pain point in your organization that you can’t seem to correct? Are your employees committing the same violations year after year?

Perhaps the symptom you are treating isn’t what is causing the pain.

A policy is not a control

It’s so obvious to most of us.

Yet, countless executives act as if a corporate policy eliminates risk.

A policy alone accomplishes nothing. It starts to have a tiny effect once it is communicated to employees. The effect grows slightly if training is provided. It become a bit more effective when, after a violation and investigation, the findings are broadly shared with the organization. But none of the above gets even close to a control

The only way for a policy to reach is full potential is to be paired with effective controls and regular audits.

Hat tip to Matthew Letts

Incentivizing Compliance: Lessons from Taiwan’s Receipt Lottery

Like most nations, Taiwan loses tax revenue from shops who only accept cash and don’t provide receipts.

Taiwan fights back with an innovative solution: receipts double as lottery tickets. Every two months, citizens share a prize pool of NT$2-3B, with several top prizes of NT$10M (~US$300K). A coffee shop that doesn’t provide receipts will lose customers to the shop that does.

Rather than simply punishing non-compliance, Taiwan designed a way to incentivize compliance. Sales tax revenue reportedly increased by 75% in the first year.

There’s a lesson here for anyone running a compliance program. Should we spend all of our budget chasing the few who violate our standards? Or perhaps spend some of it on incentivizing the masses who want to do the right thing?

When less is more

Early in my business ethics career I was designing the annual hour-long employee training. Then I learned that our largest business unit would take a $1M hit to its bottom line because of this training.

I was shocked. But the math was simple:

Number of direct charge employees

X

average hourly wages

X

length of training

=

$1,000,000

I saw the financial impact we could have by creating a shorter – but just as impactful – training. Millions of dollars across the organization.

Do the math for your organization. How much could you save if, without sacrificing quality, your employees spent 25% or 50% less time completing online modules?

Share those numbers with your GC, your CFO, your CEO – and enjoy the nods of approval.

Is your training changing behavior?

A critical goal of compliance training is to influence employee behavior and prevent compliance violations.

To measure training effectiveness, it is therefore necessary to measure the targeted behavior before and after the training.

If your organization doesn’t know what behavior it is trying to influence, or if it doesn’t try to measure the before-and-after, it’s possible that the training is there simply to check the box.

Sure bet

People now use prediction market platforms to bet on all kinds of things.

Let’s say Apple announces that the next iPhone will launch in 2 months. People will start betting on how many camera lenses will be included and what exact colors will be offered. Anyone working in the Apple marketing team will know these answers and stand to make a profit.

A company like Apple is sure to have a policy prohibiting such use of proprietary information. But is your company familiar with prediction markets? Do they have a policy to ban trading of this kind? Do they provide training and have controls in place to deter and detect violations?

Here’s a sure bet: the number of employees who lose their jobs due to insider trading will surpass any previous year in 2026.