Doing More with Less: The Human Risk Strategies That Actually Scale

If your board doesn’t see cyber risk as a top threat to your organization—or worse, if leadership believes that tech tools alone will save you—it’s time to hit the reset button. If security training is seen as just another compliance box to tick, and your primary source of human risk data comes from phishing simulations, the reality is clear: there's an exciting opportunity right now to drive meaningful transformation in your Human Risk Management Program.

With new tools and thinking, and new products and services in market, the time has never been better to level up, do things differently, and reallocate your existing resources to build a scalable, future-ready human resilience program.

Because let’s face it: someone smart once said that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. But hey, we’re not here to judge—just to offer a fresh perspective. After all, even the best strategies need a refresh from time to time, right??

Why Behavior Is the Touchstone

What started as cybersecurity awareness has evolved into human risk management, shifting the focus from just knowledge to now include behavior. This is a positive development, but human behavior isn’t exactly binary—it's rarely black and white. Behavior is influenced by a myriad of factors: some inherent and trait-based, some driven by external forces, and others seemingly unknowable. If you have kids, you know exactly what I mean.

"Behavior" in your Human Risk Management Program isn’t something you get from LMS modules or once-a-year compliance training. Changing behavior to foster positive, protective actions is the ultimate outcome—but it’s also the touchpoint. It's where every element of your human risk management strategy converges, making behavior both the measure of success and the foundation of your approach.

Behavior is where psychology, culture, knowledge, and competency converge. It’s the visible action in your system that reflects deeper dynamics—whether someone clicks a malicious link, mishandles sensitive data, or makes a split-second decision under stress. To design a program around this critical human factor isn’t just important—it’s transformational.

And the good news? For midsize organizations, this transformation is actually more achievable than for sprawling, multinational enterprises. The complexity that comes with managing diverse cultures, languages, and business units in global organizations can be overwhelming. Regional banks, however, have a unique advantage: you have enough control, visibility, and agility to make real, measurable changes quickly.

The Legacy Inefficiency Problem

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: phishing simulation data.

For years, it’s been treated as the gold standard for measuring human risk. But if you’ve leaned heavily on phishing data, it’s time for a reality check:

• False Positives: The variability in results due to campaign design, timing, and even user fatigue can skew data.
• Subjectivity: The creation of phishing campaigns isn’t objective. Human bias influences scenario design, targeting, and metrics.
• Expensive: Considering the cost of phishing tools and the time spent managing campaigns, are you really getting a return on investment? Or is it an expensive crutch?

If phishing simulations have helped you track responsiveness and reporting, that’s great. But phishing and training can’t be the only tools in your toolbox. And if it’s not a tool that's truly working for you—especially with budget constraints—many companies are reinvesting those resources elsewhere. (And I say this as a company that helps organizations run great phishing programs because we know they can be valuable. It’s just that we’ve worked with enough regional banks to understand the unique challenges you face.)

But making a pivot requires hard questions: What are you really getting out of it? Is it moving the needle on reducing actual human risk?

Rethinking Human Risk: What Matters Most

Here’s where many SaaS human risk management platforms will jump in and say, “Just use our system, and everything will be great.”

But let’s be honest—a platform alone isn’t enough.

Identifying the human vulnerabilities, gaps, and risks that truly matter requires:

• Business Context: What are the specific risks tied to your operations, roles, and workflows?
• Cultural Context: How do organizational values, norms, and behaviors influence risk exposure?

This is where our strategic human risk management services come in. We help clients unpick risk at every level:

• Baseline Assessments: Understand your current human risk posture.
• Role-Based Analysis: Identify risks tied to specific functions and job responsibilities.
• Industry Alignment: Tailor strategies to the unique challenges facing regional banks.
• Culture & Context Mapping: Use our framework to align human risk strategies with your organizational culture.

Building a Scalable Human Risk Management Program

To tackle behavior and human risk effectively, you need more than tools. You need a map.

We help define your audiences and risk groups, devise targeted training and remediation plans, and build engagement strategies that stick. Our approach helps you:

• Meet Compliance Objectives Smarter: Reduce redundancy and increase efficiency.
• Drive Real Behavior Change: Focus on what actually reduces risk, not just what looks good on paper.
• Leverage Data, Automation, and Insights: Stretch your security budget further.

And we don’t just hand you a playbook—we get stuck in and do the work with you. With a proven track record of success supporting regional banks, we understand your world.

Doing More with Less: The Reality

Yes, you can do more with less. But it may require:

• Reorganizing Budgets: Pivoting from legacy tools to solutions that drive real impact.
• Contract Consolidation: Renegotiating vendor contracts to free up resources.
• Strategic Internal Focus: Deploying your team on high-value projects that shift mindsets, culture, and operations forward.

The bottom line? You don’t need more tools—you need the right strategy, the right focus, and a partner who knows how to help you scale human resilience in the real world.