Rethinking Security Awareness: A GRC Guide to Impact and Influence

Every year, like clockwork, security awareness training kicks off. Usually filled with outdated stock images, mandatory quizzes, and that one video where someone types their password into a fake login screen. You watch it roll out to teams across the org as they nod along, click through, and just “get it done.” Technically, the boxes get ticked. But something’s off.

As a security professional, you’re the one reviewing the incident logs, noticing the same mistakes, seeing the same control failures tied to user behavior. You’ve read the postmortems. You’ve seen the gaps.

So why aren’t people remembering the policies? Why does that same phishing link keep getting clicked? Why do these training efforts feel more like an annual ritual than a meaningful safeguard?

There’s a better way to do this. With your experience in a GRC position, you’ve gained valuable insight into risks, controls, and compliance obligations. Plus, you understand your users, and you actually care about their security education. This means you’re perfectly positioned to turn awareness into a living, breathing part of your program.

The Awareness Status Quo

“Generic training” is code for “forgotten by next week.” It’s time to re-consider sending the same courses, reminders, and warnings to everyone, from your junior sales rep to your seasoned legal counsel. When you do this, it treats awareness like a task to be crossed off instead of an opportunity to reinforce real-world behaviors.

You’ve likely seen this in action:

• An employee aces the quiz on Monday but reports a phishing email to IT... six weeks later.

• Risky workflows stay risky because training hasn’t adapted to new threats.

• Audit findings flag the same behavior-linked control gaps over and over again.

How can we change this?

Use Your Toolkit

You’ve got the tools. Risk registers, audit reports, control maps, and they’re all packed with intel. So why not channel that data into awareness strategies that actually make a difference?

Prioritize by risk: Create content that matches the risks people actually face. HR might need a reminder on handling PII; finance might benefit from refresher tips on vendor fraud. The point? Be specific. Make sure you’re creating or assigning relevant training lessons for each department or team.

Track what matters: Skip the participation trophy. Focus on behaviors like repeat phishing test failures, slow incident reporting, and suspicious data handling trends. If it’s not helping people act more securely, it’s not working.

Map it back to frameworks: Show how your awareness work supports ISO, NIST, or SOC 2 controls. This turns your training plan into a compliance win with built-in audit receipts.

Make Behavior the Metric

You already focus on results in every other part of your job. Awareness should be no different.

Try this:

• Scan recent incidents and find the common threads. Maybe it's repeated credential reuse, or confusion around data handling. Those patterns are your training prompts. With Herd, you can turn those insights into instant, tailored micro-trainings that meet the moment (no LMS setup required.)

• Use audit and control data to find weak spots. Build micro-trainings to close them.

• Keep it fresh. Evolve your content when risks change. (Because they will.)

And don’t be afraid to experiment. Leaderboards, team challenges, small rewards. They’re not gimmicks if they help build healthy habits.

Where Herd Helps

At Herd, we’re all about helping folks like you level up awareness without reinventing the wheel or drowning in spreadsheets.

Here’s what we bring to the table:

• Nudges at the right time: A quick heads-up when someone’s about to make a questionable move, like hitting “Send” on an email with sensitive data.

• Behavioral snapshots: Real-time insights into what’s improving and what needs attention. Want to see which teams respond well to phishing drills? We’ve got you.

• Learning that lives where work happens: No extra tabs. No clunky portals. Just smart, bite-sized reminders and trainings in Slack or Teams, email, and the tools your people already use.

A Maturity Model for GRC-Led Awareness

Wondering where you are today, and where you could go next? Try this:

1. Compliance-Centric: Training is annual, static, and designed to satisfy auditors. Metrics measure whether “everyone did the thing.”

2. Risk-Aligned: Training reflects specific threats and maps to real control objectives. Metrics measure some behavior change.

3. Culture-Embedded: Security habits show up in the flow of work. Metrics measure specific things like fewer incidents, more self-reporting, and stronger control performance.

While Herd can definitely help you stay compliant, we built our solutions for orgs working toward Stage 2 and beyond. So if you’re looking to take your security awareness one step further, let us help. You’ve got the vision; we’ve got the engine.

Final Thoughts: You Can Own This

You already influence how your org manages risk. Awareness is just one more lever you can pull. And it’s one with a ton of untapped potential. So whether you're reviewing your policy set, planning your next audit, or just looking for a smarter way to prevent the same mistakes, don't sleep on the role of training. Make it sharper. Make it faster. Make it yours.

Security awareness should feel like a feature, not a chore. Let’s build something that sticks.

Ready to Level Up Your Program?

Start by exploring how Herd’s behavior-driven security awareness platform can help you tie training directly to your risk controls, engage employees in real time, and give you the metrics that matter. Schedule a quick demo with the Herd team and see how easy it is to embed smarter security into your workflows with less noise and more clarity.