How to Improve Corporate Governance in China with Online Training

With China’s Basic Standard for Enterprise Internal Control (C-SOX or “China SOX”) coming into effect soon, many companies in China are struggling to develop an appropriate training plan for how to educate their workforce about this new rule.

The biggest challenge for companies adopting China SOX is to improve their corporate governance.  For China SOX to really succeed, companies have to embrace sound corporate governance as a concept and adopt it as a business strategy.

Training programs are needed to help drive the corporate governance principles mandated by the Basic Standard for Enterprise Internal Control.  But given the complexity of corporate governance and its many aspects, where should companies start? 

Online training (e-learning) is a powerful tool to improve corporate governance.  Here are 5 ways that e-learning can help improve corporate governance and lead to China SOX compliance:

1)  Good content.  Start with relevant content developed by corporate governance experts.  The courseware should be relevant to Chinese companies and provide an overview of the main benefits and implementation strategies of good corporate governance.  Users should be able to take the e-learning course at their own time and at a reasonable length (a best practice is to break up the courses into 10 – 15 minute modules).

2) Segment your user base.  With e-learning, you can provide targeted information to specific users.   The benefit of this is that you can provide exactly what the learner needs, no more and no less.  Considering the complexity of corporate governance, many employees just need to know the basics.  However, top managers will need much more detail on how to implement corporate governance principles. 

3)  Delivery system.  Use a learning management system (LMS) or similar tool to deliver the content to your users.  That way, it is easy to track and manage and the training can be centrally administered, no matter how large and dispersed the organization.   In addition, the LMS can be used as a communication tool and document repository.

4)  Reporting.  Unlike traditional classroom training, powerful reports can quickly be generated from e-learning.  This helps for analysis and evaluation of your training results, ROI and reach.  Detailed analytics are possible once you have done the training several times and can match it up against business results (in this case, compliance with China SOX).

5)  Cycle as needed.  Training is only effective if it is reinforced over time.  Online learning means that you can provide reinforcement in small amounts to your audience to make sure they are keeping up.  The marginal cost of additional training is basically zero, which makes it much more cost effective than traditional instructor-led training.