Organisations are becoming increasingly concerned with the levels of risk they carry. Risks may emanate from many areas of business but most commonly concern corporate governance, finance, occupational health and safety and equal opportunity. Read Full Article

Organisations are becoming increasingly concerned with the levels of risk they carry. Risks may emanate from many areas of business but most commonly concern corporate governance, finance, occupational health and safety and equal opportunity.

Traditional approaches to risk management tended to concentrate on compliance with legislation and regulation and/or with company policy and procedures. Whereas a compliance model may in fact ensure that employees perform responsibly, this approach is reliant on key drivers to maintain compliance. When the key drivers are not available or decide to deal with different priorities, compliance suffers. 

So, rather than relying on a small number of key drivers - frequently as seen as having a policing role - the solution lies with each employee being the key driver of compliance. This requires that the compliance model be revised to include commitment. The SZT Model balances both compliance and commitment because true compliance is not sustainable and self-generating without unconditional commitment. When a critical mass of people is unconditionally committed to compliance then the power of shared zero tolerance is realised. 

Interventions to ensure committed compliance should include two sources of information. 

The first source is factual information, such as legislative or policy expectations, and tells us what must happen, i.e. compliance. Compliance information is content driven. 

The second source of information is contextual and addresses the question of why we should be committed to compliance. That is, compliance being the right and proper thing to do because of the effects of non-compliance on people and the business. Figure 1 represents the balance between compliance and commitment.

Figure 1

The starting point is to audit the level of risk within an organisation. Audits should be conducted on a continuous basis to ensure ongoing commitment to compliance.

The initial audit will identify one of three broad outcomes as follows:

In Figure 2 above, the level of risk is equally balanced between compliance and commitment and the interventions which follow will address both areas of concern simultaneously.

In Figure 3 above, the organisation is largely compliant but without the necessary commitment to ensure sustainable and self-generated long-term compliance. Reliance on key positions, such as diversity and occupational health and safety managers, tends to be a feature of the above profile. These positions often concentrate on enforcement rather than attitudinal change. 

Interventions would largely concentrate on attitudinal change whilst reinforcing and augmenting compliance information.

People are largely committed and motivated towards compliance but are not in fact as compliant as they might wish or think they are. Interventions in this scenario would be to harness the levels of commitment and provide contentbased activities to increase awareness of legislative and company expectations.

SZT Model Methodology

MaST 3D Process
The MaST 3D process has four phases - Diagnose, Design, Deliver, followed by Measuring and Evaluation - involving 15 distinct steps. Implementing such a comprehensive model will contribute to a greater degree of confidence that both compliance and commitment will be achieved. 

Achieving Commitment - MaST Theatre
Utilising professional scriptwriters, directors and actors through live theatre brings a new and challenging dimension to group training. Live theatre deals with the 'hearts and minds' issues associated with risk management - that is, commitment. 

Traditional approaches to training more than adequately satisfy the compliance aspect of training. Compliance training usually covers such topics as legislation and policy. Commitment training looks for attitudinal changes through real time experiences of harassment via theatre.

MaST theatre contributes to more sustainable changes in attitude and, therefore, behaviours. 

The results of this approach prove that MaST Theatre works when it comes to changing attitudes and behaviours as opposed to simply acquiring knowledge around a specific area of organisational risk. The knowledge is important for compliance, but attitudinal change is crucial for the motivation and commitment to act on the knowledge gained. 

For more information please call MaST on (03) 9249 9682 or visit www.mastaustralia.com.auconcentrate on enforcement rather than attitudinal change.