Ervaring
Each crew member is vital to your success. In your ascent and also to prevent accidents. Read more about the importance of reflection in the blog by Legal Privacy Council Eva Riphagen!
The key to a succesful awareness campaign
You’re on your way to your destination on the mountain, but slowing down in the ascent. The climbing crew is getting tired and in doubt whether they should go any further. They even contemplate going back to their ‘normal lives’. Sounds familiar? Each crew member is vital to your success. In your ascent, and also to prevent accidents. That’s why it’s important to reflect on your purpose and progress. Time for an awareness campaign!
We all know how lengthy and boring training sessions can be. People have to attend because their boss tells them to. This kind of meetings don’t always have the desired effect. How do you run a successful awareness campaign? Here are some elements:
- Ask your Communications Department for help
- Engage people on a personal level
- Have some fun
- Give continuous attention to privacy and data protection
Communications
Privacy and data protection are often considered from a legal or IT perspective, but that’s not how most employees view these subjects. They just want to do their jobs and don’t want to be bothered with extra work. It won’t really help them having Legal Counsels or Security Officers telling them what they can’t do, or what’s not safe to do. They need to find out what they can do, in a way that suits their needs. Your Communications Department - or a couple of creative, people-oriented employees if you don’t have one - can help you to get this message across effectively.
Engage people on a personal level
The real challenge is changing people’s behaviour, so I’ve experienced. One of the key ways to engage people is by sharing stories and connecting with them on a personal level. If they realize what privacy means to them, they’re more likely to understand what it can mean to someone else. Ask your employees questions like Why is privacy important to you? What could it mean for someone else? How does this relate to your work? How can you serve our customers privacy needs? If you do this in a group and facilitate discussions, your employees will notice that there can be different perspectives. It also helps them to understand what matters to your customers.
Let’s have some fun!
Having fun at first glance seems like a truism, but it is one of the pitfalls in providing good learning experiences. Nobody wants to look stupid. Privacy awareness - or any kind of awareness for that matter - is better raised if you make people happy. So get them involved and physically active if possible. It’s as simple as hosting a good party. Take care of the food and beverage and make sure your ‘training’ becomes a social event.
Continuous attention
Losing focus is easy. It's getting it back that's the hard part. When people go back to their daily routines, you cannot finish your efforts. Actually, this is where it all starts, because now people are going to bring everything they learned into practice. Constant focus is important to prevent accidents like data breaches. You can help them maintain their focus and engagement, for example with a prize, gadgets or games. As a game, you may consider practicing your protocol in a crisis simulation. This way, privacy and data protection will become part of their daily business.
Need help?
When your crew continues the climb after a successful campaign, you still need to make sure that this doesn’t require too much extra effort. So implement your measures from a business/ process perspective, not from a technical or legal point of view. Facilitate your employees and make sure it’s easy to take good care of your customers’ privacy. Then your customers will take good care of you! Our DPA Privacy Sherpa’s will gladly help you to set up an awareness program, train your staff or implement your privacy & data protection program in a practical and sustainable manner. Please contact us or visit our page.
