Know Your Compliance Monsters: Malaise

Basic Information

By the time you realize Malaise has struck, it’s already too late. This infernal force voraciously consumes compliance programs from the inside out, sucking away motivation and leaving nothing behind but a dull headache and the howling emptiness of organization-wide apathy.

–Source: Compliance Monsters: A Field Guide

The nature of Malaise is difficult to define. Is she a living creature acting independently or something more abstract, like a manifestation of the aggregate listless feelings inside each of us? No one is certain—because after you’ve encountered Malaise head-on, it’s impossible to care.

Malaise draws her power from engaged and interested employees, leaving behind an overwhelming sense of boredom and dread. Gliding around like a slug, she uses her long antennae to feed on motivation as she stares down your team members with her dull, hypnotizing gaze.

Habitat

Unlike other Compliance Monsters, Malaise doesn’t make any effort to hide herself. Once she’s made her presence known, everyone is aware she’s present—but why bother doing anything about it?

Thus, it isn’t unusual to see Malaise hanging out in the open during an HR or compliance meeting. She loves to taunt speakers during presentations, interrupt seminars and training sessions, and take the fun out of the onboarding process. Mostly, though, Malaise just sits there, and sits there, and sits there… and before you know it, you’re just sitting there too. What were you doing? What are you supposed to be doing? It doesn’t matter anymore.

Eradication

Malaise may seem unstoppable—that’s what she wants you to think—but she isn’t. All it takes to rid your organization of this monster is a focus on your employees, as members of your team tend to show signs of Malaise’s influence before she appears in full.

Whenever you can, avoid unnecessary, time-wasting activities. Human attention spans are shorter than ever before, giving Malaise ample opportunity to attack. Pay attention to when your employees’ levels of engagement start to flag (typically around the 10-minute mark) and take a break or shake things up. As you take note of where and when individuals are no longer able to process information, update your compliance management system accordingly—for instance, by breaking up content into smaller, bite-sized chunks.

Fortunately, the same preventative measures that work against the Obfusticator and the Spreadsheet Eater are also effective against Malaise. Compligo, Complí’s cloud-based workforce compliance automation software, is designed to ensure the retention of critical compliance information. Our automated platform delivers short, repeatable training modules in a variety of formats to every member of your team based on each member’s role in your organization.