Why should you train all of your staff on GDPR?

Why GDPR is important training for all

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect in May 2018 and making sure staff are appropriately trained is essential. There is no point in fulfilling all the steps of GDPR compliance only for one of your employees to mishandle your customers’ personal data by mistake or through a poor understanding of the regulation. Of course, understanding GDPR is important, but it is just as important that employees know how to apply the principles in their work role. As an employer, you need to be confident that your employees are protecting your organisation and its customers, partners and other employees from the effects of poor data protection.

Data protection experts have continuously highlighted that staff training is an essential part of GDPR compliance. For example, knowing the correct procedures to identify a customer caller, understanding special category data, not changing or modifying specific information, following security and passwords policies, etc. With the rising number of data security breaches that occur, it is paramount to ensure your employees fully understand how to protect personal data in order to maintain your company’s reputation.

The Training of staff in GDPR not only reduces the risk of breaches, it also demonstrates compliance in the regulations. As an example, if an organisation experienced a data breach and had a record of sufficient staff training, this could prove that they had taken the appropriate steps to prevent the breach and were therefore taking the regulations seriously.

Are all your staff aware of GDPR and the issues of data protection?

Under Article 39 of the GDPR, it states that raising staff-awareness and providing relevant training is necessary. However, it is also essential to understand that this could affect each company differently.

How do I get my team on board?

Ensuring staff value what they are being asked to do comes down to effective awareness training and making it relevant. Your employees need to know the logic behind the key points, but they don’t need to know every detail. Make sure they understand the reasoning, and whatever is relevant to their own activities and how that is applied in their role. Otherwise, there is a danger that they may apply their knowledge in the wrong ways.

Keep any learning engaging, fresh and succinct – it’s better to provide short elements of learning that the employee can take on board, rather than try to provide all of the information at once, which could make it difficult to digest. Making sure this is not just a “box ticking exercise” – people learn in different ways, so organisations must deliver a mix of content (for example, classroom learning, quizzes, videos, e-learning, refreshers). A yearly refreshment is the best way to ensure your workforce are kept up to date with the latest regulations and to ensure they don’t fall into any bad habits.

Just because the GDPR is now in effect, it doesn’t mean the journey is over. It just means that there are new challenges ahead.

The consequences for failing to comply with the regulations are still present. Organisations can face unlimited fines and in extreme cases individuals can be handed a prison sentence. It is therefore essential that people’s data is treated with in the right way.

Trainer Bubble has a range of GDPR related e-learning courses, training course materials and videos, which will help you to deliver quick, affordable and effective GDPR courses.

View all our GDPR training products here