The reality of compliance training for most organizations goes something like this: Legal responsibilities and regulatory requirements continue to increase, budgets shrink, and seat time pressures rise — not quite the formula for a winning training solution.
53% of decision makers in organizations list having limited training hours available as one of their top two program challenges. To further highlight the issue, 47% of companies do not use third-party compliance training; they want their very own shiny, engaging training product.
So let’s get the message straight. Organizations want personalized, bespoke compliance training that also provides more bang for less buck. How’s that for a challenge?
Here are our top tips for maximizing the impact of your compliance training experience.
1. Use burst learning.
Burst learning is a modular, scalable training approach using bite-sized chunks of training. Short eLearning bursts can be developed using responsive design to make one build available on mobile devices including iPads and smartphones. Burst learning boasts its value in reducing seat time because it allows training to be slotted in between tasks, or even in pockets of time off-site, such as waiting in the café queue or during the commute home. Burst learning acknowledges that training is not a one-time event and that training frequency is vital, making it easier and cost effective to deliver refresher training and update content given the modular structure.
2. Create a compelling campaign.
If your messages aren’t committed to your learners’ memories after compliance training, we can probably deem it a failure (sorry!). But there is hope. Extending the compliance training experience beyond the classroom or computer in a motivational campaign is an effective strategy to keep key takeaway messages at the forefront of your learners’ minds. You could include a catchy tagline that aligns with your organizational values and goals and make it the everyday workplace mantra, or create a series of visually engaging posters, each bearing an important message reminder and reiterating the tagline.
3. Incorporate appropriate gamification.
Gamification, which involves incorporating game mechanics in eLearning, is a current hot trend. However, to be successful, gamification is more than simply ‘slapping a leader board on it’. Gamification should be a planned, integrated approach that meshes with the learning content to increase engagement and motivation but never at the cost of pedagogical integrity. Developed wisely, gamified eLearning can take compliance training to the next level.
4. Use real employees and real messages.
How often is compliance training generalized and not role specific? For example, information security might have industry-standard principles, but how is it managed within your organization and what are the impacts of non-compliance? How about having your employees share their real-life scenarios and experiences during the training through video or audio to add context to content and make it relatable? Content can also be made interesting by attaching it to statistics in an infographic or by using audio narration with animated visual support to add another level of detail and understanding to key messages.
5. Make a song and dance about it.
Now for the fun part. Although not appropriate for all organizations, another trend in compliance training is to create a music video using employees to act out key messages. Music videos allow an organization to express the personality and culture of the business, which can be difficult to do through traditional compliance training products. For many employees, compliance training occurs during induction and it is their first impression of the organization, so you better make it count! Are there any takers for a spot of song and dance? Check out the examples below:
References
1. Independent and blind 2014 Compliance Training Benchmark Survey Analysis by a third-party market research firm
2. 2013 Compliance Week & Kroll Anti-Bribery & Corruption Benchmarking Report
