How Microsoft got its employees excited about compliance training

No, Microsoft employees haven’t gathered together to watch the series finale of Succession.

Instead, they’re engrossed in the latest season of Trust Code, a highly produced series that has the allure of prestige television, with a focus that’s decidedly less sexy: ethics and compliance.

Mike Jackson, head of CELA compliance and ethics governance, training, and culture, at Microsoft, leads the work on the compliance training videos, which first premiered in 2017. He told HR Brew his team had been seeking “a different way to engage employees around compliance,” which led them to pivot to a narrative format.

He said the series has spurred Microsoft employees to talk more about ethics and compliance, and consider how the lessons apply to their professional lives, even after the show ends.

A novel approach. Prior to launching Trust Code, Microsoft’s compliance training was more standard, according to Jackson, characterized by videos, content, and click-through messaging.

Now, employees gather each September to watch the characters in Trust Code grapple with ethical quandaries that don’t always have a clear solution.

Microsoft develops marketing materials and employee engagement activities around the launch of the show, Jackson said. Employees will reserve conference rooms to watch episodes together, whether as a department or with other groups of colleagues.

Several seasons of Trust Code follow a character named Nelson who learns lessons about trade requirements, proprietary ideas, and privacy while developing a product. During the first season, Nelson accesses data without permission to test the product. While a security-minded friend tells him how to report and correct the issue, he still fears losing his job over these missteps later on.

Though the actor who plays Nelson isn’t a Microsoft employee, he’s now a celebrity within the organization, according to a Wall Street Journal report on the series. Even Microsoft President Brad Smith chimed in on a debate about whether Nelson should be fired.

How Microsoft does it. Jackson and his team work closely with subject matter experts in Microsoft departments such as legal, finance, and HR to conceive of storylines and themes for each season of Trust Code that will “capture the essence” of what they’re seeing or dealing with, he said.

They then work with an external production company to develop the script, film the season, and get Trust Code through the postproduction process. All told, putting out a new season takes the better part of a year, he said. His team is currently working on the seventh season, which will come out this fall, and focus in part on responsible AI, digital safety, and privacy.

The goal, Jackson said, is to make the training accessible, practical, and entertaining. His team considers how to help “people better understand what are expectations, or how they should navigate situations that they may confront at some point during their career at Microsoft.”

Microsoft’s Trust Code video training has a 99% completion rate—a promising sign that employees are engaged, Jackson said. But even more encouraging is the fact it seems to stick with staff after they’ve watched a new season, he added.

“Seeing employees continue to talk about storylines, messaging, content, season over season, is also really helpful because it means that the learning doesn't just stop when they hit end on their player,” Jackson said. “They're continuing to think about it; they're continuing to apply it.”

The challenge of compliance. Trust Code offers one approach to a challenge that has long dogged HR departments: Getting employees not only to complete compliance training, but also learn something valuable from it.

Fewer than 1 in 4 employees (23%) who had participated in a compliance or ethics training session within the past 12 months rated the training as "excellent," a Gallup survey published in November 2021 found.

Companies often design compliance training to meet regulatory requirements, but “they're boring to the point of being painful,” said Hui Chen, a business ethics and compliance expert who is senior advisor for R&G Insights Lab, part of law firm Ropes & Gray. What’s more, compliance isn’t often integrated with employees’ jobs, so it’s hard for them to understand how the lessons apply to their own work.

Microsoft’s training video is “a good first step,” Chen told HR Brew, but she added its success will hinge on how the company measures what people are learning.

She likened compliance training to taking vitamins: “You're supposed to learn something from it. It's not just about entertainment.”

Jackson, via email, told HR Brew that Microsoft does a survey to gauge employees’ engagement with the course, measuring whether employees are more likely to raise concerns after watching the training, as well as “other aspects relating to the training’s effectiveness.”