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Q&A: Norvartis International Integrity & Compliance Training Team - Interactive Services

Q&A: Novartis International Integrity & Compliance Training Team

Britta Luescher, Nicole Leret, Elke Baumann

Britta Luescher, PhD – Previous Director for Compliance Training
Britta Luescher was Director for Compliance Training at Novartis International, where she established new and efficient ways for compliance training and internal communication. Britta has been in the role since 2011 and worked in multiple commercial management roles since joining Novartis in 1995.
Nicole Leret – Compliance Project Manager
A results-focused professional with over 8 years’ experience across a range of compliance, marketing, sales, communications and media planning roles.
Elke Baumann – New Director for Compliance Training
Elke leads the compliance-related training programs for Novartis globally, including the Compliance team, development of policy and behavior based engagement programs for Associates and Leaders.
Elke has 25 years multi-country experience in the Pharma industry in both commercial and compliance related roles.
Q1. In your opinion, what makes an effective compliance training program?

A defined training strategy by the Compliance function and commitment from the Business to embed compliance in all business activities. To be effective, the program should employ multiple training and communication channels such as workshops, e-Training courses, videos, etc. Profiling and risk-based targeted training to all levels in the organization ensures engagement and impact.

Q2. What communications strategy do you use to help launch mandatory training efforts?

Most of our e-Trainings are launched after a three-to-six-month global communication/educational campaign. The e-Training can then be a tool to measure the knowledge uptake from associates. Often, we encourage our leaders to set the tone and communicate the importance of the training to their teams.

Q3. On average, how much time every year do you think staff spend on mandatory training and should that time be protected?

Three to four hours yearly is spent on global compliance e-Trainings. We carefully watch and manage that time centrally. Locally delivered training adds to the total time spent.

Q4. How important is it customize your training and what sort of customization do you do?

All our mandatory compliance trainings are tailor-made and profiled. Customization is key to effective training.

Q5. What’s the biggest challenge you face every year when it comes to compliance training?

Developing engaging global training that is relevant to a multicultural population of over 120,000 employees.

Q6. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever got on putting together your compliance training program?

Keep it simple, less is more.

Q7. What are your training pet hates?

Technical issues.

Q8. What’s been your biggest success and why?

Turning compliance e-trainings into a fun and interactive learning piece, which has helped engage associates with a topic that was once perceived as tedious.

Q9. What innovations are you seeing in current training and do you think there is anything missing currently?

Augmented and virtual reality are trending in the training arena.
We think what is missing are more opportunities to connect with learners in face-to-face interactions. Digitalization is moving us away from human contact.

Q10. If you could give one piece of advice to anyone thinking of training their employees, what would it be?

Understand what your audience needs to learn and how they prefer to learn it.

Keep it simple,less is more.