You might be launching a code of conduct from scratch, responding to a breach, or reinforcing an established compliance and ethics programme. In each case, reducing risk means changing what people actually do.
We create communication and training programmes to make that happen.
Whatever your focus – AI, data protection, safety, anti-bribery and corruption, speaking up, or the specific regulations that govern your sector – we help you embed the behaviours that underpin safe and ethical conduct.
Everything starts from what’s already happening in your organisation. We work with you to understand what people think, feel, and do – and what makes the right choice harder than it should be.
Before we build anything, you’ll know what needs to change, how to change it, and what to measure. Your effort and budget will deliver greater impact. And you’ll do more than meet your audit requirements.
“I’ve worked with Acteon for years, shaping cutting-edge, human-centred approaches to ethics, compliance and risk. They lead with remarkable intelligence, creativity and genuine kindness. The best days are the ones spent working alongside them.”
Associate Director, Strategy, Wellcome
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Most compliance failures aren’t caused by bad intentions. People make mistakes because they’re busy, distracted, under pressure, or don’t know where to turn. That’s why simply giving them more information rarely helps.
To change outcomes, you need to make the right action easier, so that anyone can do it – and then you need to prompt someone to act in the moments that matter.
That’s how you help people confidently make responsible decisions, so they become a more reliable first line of defence.
Turning policies and standards into action
So, amid the challenge and change, how can you create an environment that promotes competent compliance – helping people do the right things, and making sure they’re providing an effective first line of defence for your organisation?
Identify the everyday actions that have the biggest impact on risk
Connect those actions to the things that engage and motivate your people
Create memorable communication and learning that drive action where it counts.
We’ve delivered multiple award-winning compliance and ethics projects in pharmaceuticals and life sciences, financial services, healthcare and care, media, charities, retail, and more.
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FAQs
How do we show that our compliance training is effective?
Completion rates show attendance, not outcomes. A more useful measure is whether the behaviours that reduce your risk are actually happening. Are people seeking advice before decisions rather than after? Do they raise concerns earlier? Are teams who never contacted the compliance function now doing so? Those measures need a baseline, which is why we start by establishing what’s happening now, before designing anything.
We want to keep our existing approach to mandatory training. Can you work with that?
Yes, it’s a common starting point for clients. We can work with your existing approach and audit requirements, whilst also addressing the small number of behaviours where the real risk sits, and what happens outside the mandatory training.
Why does traditional compliance training often fail to change behaviour?
Traditional compliance training often treats the problem as an information gap, assuming that if people know the rules, they’ll follow them. In reality, most compliance failures happen because people are busy, distracted, under pressure, or unsupported in the moment when they need to make a decision. Training that doesn’t address those conditions won’t reliably change what people actually do in the moments that matter.
How can I reduce compliance training time without losing effectiveness?
Too often, compliance training focuses on policy and process. You can reduce compliance training time - and increase impact - by focusing on specific behaviours that help people do the right thing. Often, it’s a few simple actions that make all the difference. By targeting these, training becomes shorter, more relevant, and more likely to change what people do at work.
How do I make compliance training more engaging?
Any training is more engaging when it focuses on real behaviours and practical actions, not policies to memorise. So make the required actions simple and memorable. And connecting the training messages to what actually motivates employees – things they care about – helps makes compliance feel like a valuable habit rather than a box-ticking exercise.
How does Acteon’s behavioural approach help?
Compliance training is effective when it targets the specific choices and actions employees need to use, connects those actions to what motivates people, and builds communication that makes the right behaviour easy to remember. This is Acteon's approach to compliance challenges - and it’s been recognised through multiple award-winning projects across a wide range of sectors.
What kinds of compliance challenges does Acteon support?
Acteon supports a huge range of compliance challenges including code of conduct/ ethics training and policy roll-out, GDPR, Health and Safety, Cybersecurity, DE&I, whistleblowing and speak up training - any situation where the safety, integrity, or ethical standards of an organisation depend on people consistently making the right call.