CISA Governance and Management of IT Practice Question
An organization has a policy requiring annual information security awareness training for all employees. During a recent audit, it was found that 20% of employees had not completed the training. What is the BEST course of action for the IT governance committee?
⚠ Common exam trap
CISA often tests the difference between treating the symptom (extending deadlines, reducing frequency) and addressing the root cause (lack of accountability); candidates may pick a lenient option that weakens the control instead of enforcing it.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Require managers to ensure their teams complete training and escalate non-compliance to HR.
The governance committee's role is to ensure policy compliance through accountability mechanisms. Requiring managers to enforce completion and escalating non-compliance to HR reinforces the policy's mandatory nature and creates consequences for non-compliance, which is the most effective way to achieve sustained compliance. This addresses the root cause—lack of enforcement—rather than weakening the policy.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Reduce the training frequency to biennial.
Why it's wrong here
Reducing frequency to biennial contradicts the policy's annual requirement and weakens the control rather than closing the 20% gap. It is tempting as a workload reduction measure, and would be correct only after a formal risk assessment and policy amendment approved by the governance committee.
- ✓
Require managers to ensure their teams complete training and escalate non-compliance to HR.
Why this is correct
Line managers own their teams' compliance, so requiring them to enforce completion and escalating persistent non-compliance to HR applies accountability and consequence. This addresses the 20% gap through existing governance structures rather than ad hoc reminders or policy rewrites.
- ✗
Extend the training deadline by three months.
Why it's wrong here
Extending the deadline leaves the policy non-compliant for a further three months and does not address why 20% failed to complete it. It is tempting as a pragmatic grace period, and would be correct if the shortfall were caused by a documented, temporary system outage.
- ✗
Make the training optional for employees with high performance ratings.
Why it's wrong here
Exempting high performers breaches the policy's universal applicability and creates an unmanaged risk population. It is tempting because performance ratings are used to allocate discretionary benefits, and would be correct only where a role genuinely has no access to information assets, which the policy does not permit.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official ISACA exam blueprint
This CISA practice question is part of Courseiva's free ISACA certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the CISA exam.