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Q&A with Kamrul Khan - Chief Compliance Officer - Interactive Services

Q&A with Kamrul Khan

Kamrul Khan is the US Compliance Officer for Situs, a global Commercial Real Estate advisory firm.
I previously managed employee facing Compliance functions for The Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation. I have a bachelors in Economics from Baruch College and a Masters in Information Systems from Pace University.
Q1. In your opinion, what makes an effective compliance training program?

Compliance training is only as good as the reason for doing it. For Situs, compliance is about empowering our people to perform their jobs in a way that mitigates risk and allows them to deliver the best possible outcome for our clients. To do that effectively, we try to make our compliance training practical and directly tied to real-life scenarios that employees would come across in their day-to-day dealings.

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

In addition to our annual compliance training, we use routine reminder emails and leverage our leadership to cascade reminders in order to reinforce key compliance topics and ongoing education.

Q3. On average, how much time every year do your staff spend on mandatory training, and is that time protected?

Three to five hours. Compliance is a priority for us and ensures we mitigate risk for our company and clients. To that end, we encourage, and support, our employees to make this a priority.

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

Customized training is critical for us. Our business is unique and, therefore, requires training that aligns with the unique scenarios we encounter and with the nomenclature our employees are familiar with.

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

Ensuring timely completion! As with every company, people are busy so; we try to do our best to make compliance as easy and intuitive as possible.

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

To have a risk-based training program, not a one size fits all. Not all risks are created equal, not every employee should be trained on the exact same topics.

Q7. What are your training pet hates?

Systems issues are sometimes unavoidable and learning management systems (LMS) are not immune to them. Glitches with LMS systems can be an inconvenience in the midst of a training rollout.

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

In 2018, we launched a new compliance training program, using Interactive’s suite of courses.

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

Virtual reality and augmented reality represent significant opportunities for compliance training. These new technologies offer new and interesting possibilities to incorporate scenario-based learning and create a more engaging experience.

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

Listen. Spend time talking to your employees about their past experience with compliance training; what worked and what did not. Always be looking for ways to improve.

Biggest Challenge…Ensuring timely completion!

If you are interested in our compliance training or other learning solutions, please contact Becky Murphy (bmurphy@interactiveservices.com), Client Engagement Manager, Interactive Services.