9 Reasons to Create a Culture of Compliance for Your RTO

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to possess a magical compliance wand, to swish the demands of ASQA away? Imagine the hours you’d reclaim, time that could be spent figuring out how to deliver excellent training to your students.

Sadly, us Muggles have to tackle compliance the old fashioned way, and because we have no choice but to grit our teeth and get on with it, we may as well go one step further and embrace it.

Embrace compliance? Surely not!

Unsavoury as the idea may seem, it carries great benefits. When we welcome compliance with open arms, and respond to its every demand, we create a training organisation that thrives.

Here’s 9 reasons why you should consider creating a culture of compliance for your RTO.

1. Better training

Equipped with the latest knowledge and techniques, up-to-date trainers remain compliant, and can deliver the best education to students. Compliance forces investment in professional development, creating a workforce of experts, with the knowledge needed for excellent training. Novel challenges also keep things fresh for the trainers.

2. Solid structure

When compliance is placed at the heart of a company, and permeates through every department and process, a stable structure starts to develop. Compliance processes are documented, repeated, and absorbed by staff, making everything more manageable. When doubt enters the fray, the compliance structure that you’ve built provides the support needed to move ahead with confidence. 

3. It becomes less scary

Creating a culture of compliance in your organisation drags it out of the murky shadows and into the light, where it can no longer be conveniently ignored, but faced head on with courage. The greater our motivation to understand and tame compliance, the quicker we’ll turn it from a wily demon that screams for your attention, to an obedient, really-quite-lovely pooch that paws at you softly.

4. Audits are less stressful

Regular self-assessment helps to create quality practices and behaviours. What could be more satisfying than greeting an auditor with a genuine smile, confident with your scrupulous compliance? With everything handled before auditors arrive, they’re transformed from enemies to allies—guardians of VET industry excellence. You may even want to offer them a nice cup of tea and a biscuit.

5. Encourages scrutiny

The meticulous nature of VET compliance requires an attitude of scrutiny, where every important detail is identified, considered, and dealt with. This thoroughness can transfer to other areas of work, where we find ourselves becoming more diligent, and so more accurate in our daily tasks. Building a culture of compliance improves the attentiveness and evaluation skills of your staff. A balance must be struck though, as meticulousness can descend into time-sucking pedantry.

6. Better relationships

Compliance can require many heads to be successful. Focusing on compliance encourages your staff to work together, building relationships as they go. They might also need to identify external compliance experts, and build relationships with them too. With compliance as priority number one, good working relationships become critical, helping to develop communication skills.

As a bonus, solid relationships promote excellent mental health, reducing the drudgery of work by making it more enjoyable.

7. Promotes ethical behaviour

Tiring as rules can be, they serve a purpose. With RTO compliance, it’s to maintain excellent quality within the VET industry—an ethical, valuable goal. By creating a culture of compliance within your RTO, you’re adhering to this goal, and so also being proudly ethical.

Ethical behaviour breeds ethical behaviour, and before you know it, you might have an office full of cloak-wearing Platos.

8. Stellar reputation

Compliance = quality. And quality will make you a force to be reckoned with—an RTO with a stellar reputation, who students want to train with. Focusing on compliance could bring more students to your classrooms, and distinguished trainers who want to work with the best; a tour-de-force in the RTO world, with word-of-mouth an efficient lead generator.

9. Australia wins

Providing exceptional training helps to create a capable Australian workforce, a thriving economy, and happier Aussies. Who would have thought that compliance could make you a good patriot?

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Compliance doesn’t have to be met with defeated groans. What is compliance, after all, than just another challenge to be tackled? We can view it as a begrudged problem, or a profitable opportunity. By creating a strong compliance culture, you’re setting your RTO up for long-lasting success.

Stay posted for tips on how to create a compliance culture for your RTO. For more, visit: LMS Essentials, SMS Essentials‍