3-PART BLOG SERIES | PART 1 OF 3
By Julie Brown,
Senior Program Director, Training Center
Companies are investing more than ever in training on human rights, responsible sourcing, and ethical supply chains. Much of this momentum is being driven by existing and emerging regulations, like the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), that are reshaping how companies think about human rights due diligence (HRDD). This is a positive shift.
But alongside this momentum, we’re seeing a familiar pattern: training is increasingly treated as a catchall solution to complex, system‑level problems, often without sufficient analysis of what is actually driving risk in the first place.
To be clear, training matters. We strongly believe in its value. But when training becomes performative and just a box to check, without a deeper analysis of the change we want to see, it is devalued by everyone involved and impact is limited. This raises the first and most important question we should be asking.
Is training the answer to the problem we’re trying to solve?
HRDD is not just a compliance exercise. It is a behavior change challenge. And behavior change requires more than awareness raising through content delivery. It requires clarity on what needs to change, who needs to change it, and why.
In practice, training is often used as a shortcut for action:
- A new policy is introduced → let’s roll out a training
- An audit reveals a gap → time to deliver a workshop
- A risk is identified → assign an e-learning module
These responses create activity, but not necessarily impact. They assume that lack of knowledge is the root cause. In complex supply chains, that assumption is often incomplete.
A new policy, for example, may require training, but it may also require changes to incentives, escalation workflows, decision-making, or systems that enable people to actually apply that policy under real‑world circumstances. Without those conditions in place, training alone can’t carry the weight we put on it.
The Real Question: What Is Driving the Problem?
Before defaulting to training, companies need to identify the specific behavior that is contributing to this risk, who is linked to those behaviors, and what is preventing people from acting differently.
Sometimes the answer is a knowledge gap. Training is especially effective when people need help interpreting expectations, identifying risk, making judgment calls, or navigating their day‑to‑day roles. But it may also be something else:
- Misaligned incentives
- Conflicting business priorities
- Lack of authority or leverage to act
- Weak systems or processes
- Cultural norms or fear of speaking up
Understanding which barriers are at play is an essential part of good instructional design.
From Content Delivery to Behavior Change
Once we’ve determined that training is the right response, the next step is to identify the specific behaviors people need to understand, practice, and apply to drive meaningful change. Effective HRDD training is not just content delivery; it is a form of capability building. Capability building starts by defining success in behavioral terms:
- What should people be doing differently?
- What decisions do they need to make under pressure?
- What would motivate and enable them to act consistently?
This means moving beyond information transfer and toward the realities of the job: real decisions, real challenges, real actions that drive outcomes.
For example, instead of asking:
“What should suppliers know about our policy?”
Ask:
“What should a supplier do differently when a recruiter charges a fee?”
“What should a procurement manager do when evaluating a supplier’s pricing that seems too good to be true?”
This shift doesn’t just improve training. It also surfaces where training is insufficient on its own and where additional interventions are needed to close performance gaps.
Effective HRDD capability building is about shaping behavior in ways that enable better decisions and actions across a system.
Training as Part of a Broader Capability Strategy
Training is most effective when it is part of a broader strategy, not a standalone activity.
That means investing up front in understanding the system in which people operate, the decisions people face, and the conditions that influence how those decisions are made. It also means looking beyond knowledge gaps to identify where processes, incentives, or expectations may need to shift alongside training. Effective HRDD capability building is about shaping behavior in ways that enable better decisions and actions across a system.
In our next blog in the series, we’ll look at how human rights risks are shaped across multiple roles, and what it takes to build capability across the full supply chain.
About the Author
Julie leads Verité’s Training Center as an expert in instructional design, developing comprehensive educational programs for multinational companies and institutions working to identify and prevent human rights risks in global supply chains. Her work spans strategic due diligence training for executive leadership and technical skills development for auditors and suppliers operating in high-risk sectors. Through her leadership of Verité’s Training Center, Julie bridges the gap between theory and practice, translating complex human rights frameworks into actionable training.
training, capability building
