The truth is, compliance training can be tough to implement. It’s probably the training that employees are least excited about. It’s no wonder that many companies treat it as a mere checkbox exercise.
Actually, compliance training fulfills an important function because the ever-changing demands of today’s regulatory environment won’t ease off anytime soon. Here’s a short reminder of why compliance is so important:
- It mitigates risk.
- It protects the organisation’s reputation.
- It promotes a better workplace culture.
- It ensures that industry standards and legal requirements are met.
Compliance training is an underutilised opportunity to improve and grow as an organisation. You have the chance to shift the perception from being a lecture about laws and regulations to becoming an integral part of the organisational culture.
5 ways for effective compliance training
How can you implement compliance training that not only transfers all vital information but is also engaging and, dare we say, … fun? We’ve got a few ideas for you.
1. Show how employees benefit
Naturally, we all want to know, “What’s in it for me?” This is not obvious when it comes to compliance training and it leads to little enthusiasm. Even though participation is not optional, you’ll want to make sure that your employees are fully engaged with the training, as understanding the content is critical.
Showcase the benefits of a workplace that’s run on integrity, honesty, and compliance. What would the alternative look like? Every individual is responsible for upholding a good workplace culture.
2. Customise a solution to fit your company and culture
It’s tempting to buy an off-the-shelf solution and call it a day. However, this sends the signal that compliance is not a priority for the organisation. Also, your employees’ attention will drift off quickly when the material talks about a different industry and has little to do with their day-to-day activities.
Instead, include real-life scenarios taken directly from your company. Your employees will develop a connection with the issues at hand and remember much better what they should be doing. Besides, storytelling helps to create an immersive experience.
3. Use a variety of learning methods
Your employees have different learning preferences. By adding variety into the training, you can maximise engagement and minimise boredom. Besides text, consider using images, infographics, videos, gamification, and simulations to avoid monotony.
Variety also applies to the method of training – should the compliance training be delivered online, in a classroom, via an app, or through a mix of methods. Also, when you lower the barrier to access the training, your participation and completion rates should increase.
4. Break it down into smaller chunks
In an attempt to get compliance training out of the way as quickly as possible, organisations tend to cram all information into one large module. When employees are expected to absorb such a large amount of information in a short time frame, they won’t remember much.
Why not resort to microlearning? Breaking the training down into bite-sized chunks that are delivered over time can improve engagement and retention substantially. One way to do that is to utilise an app that’s designed to reinforce learning and behaviour change.
5. Measure the results and improve further
You already know that tracking and recording the compliance training status is critical for audit purposes. But don’t stop there. How can you be sure that your employees have actually understood the material and are going to act on it? By measuring the success of your compliance training.
That’s where our Behaviour Change System can benefit you. You can easily run customised assessments to test the knowledge of your staff. Through a dashboard, you can conveniently see how everyone is performing and make informed decisions about further improvements to the programme.
Where to go from here
Even though compliance trainings are recurring annually, organisations hesitate to invest time and resources into them. The return on investment is not immediately clear for taking the training beyond what is absolutely necessary.
Now, there’s a tool to bridge the gap between compliance training and business impact. It’s called the Behaviour Change System – and it focuses on driving lasting behaviour change that will in turn, produce the desired business results.