Compliance training is a necessity in many industries. For some companies, falling behind on compliance can have legal ramifications like fines and penalties. For others, it has more to do with maintaining consistency and quality.
Compliance training ensures that all employees understand the regulations, internal policies, and laws that apply to your business. Some government and industry oversight entities require proof that your team knows this information. This is usually done through certification and testing.
Certificates are issued upon successful completion of compliance training. A good LMS platform like the ones reviewed on LMS.org includes compliance features that track certifications and send reminders when it’s time to recertify.
Whether your compliance training is necessary for legal reasons or is an internal requirement, you need to maximize employee engagement to get the most out of it.
Is Your Compliance Training Relevant?
If you want engagement, then your compliance training content needs to be relevant. Each employee should be given content that is necessary for their job role. This usually means building a unique curriculum.
Many LMS platforms let users organize content into learning paths that are tailored to specific goals or job roles. This makes it much easier to ensure that each worker accesses what they need for compliance based on their job responsibilities.
While you can always offer other types of training, when it comes to compliance, make sure you don’t overdo it. Include everything that’s needed to be compliant but avoid adding anything that is unnecessary or not relevant. Not doing so can become overwhelming to the learner.
Make Sure Your Compliance Training is Accessible
Accessibility is also important. Your team must be able to log in and work through their compliance training without obstacles. They should know where they need to be or how to access a webinar for instructor-led training.
Most LMSs include portals that serve as a hub for learning. All you have to do is direct your team to the portal login and everything they need will be there. Other platforms also include email invitations which are just as easy to use.
If you are establishing a new educational program, make sure you provide training on the LMS. Show your team how to navigate the interface and where they can find content, documents, profiles, and everything else they need. This may not be required for compliance, but it should be a part of onboarding.
How to Make Compliance Training Fun for Your Team
Most professionals do not associate compliance training with fun. Today, the attitudes toward employee training have shifted. There’s a greater emphasis on the learner experience. That means the content is meant to be more interesting and engaging. Fun factors into it more than it ever has before.
Making compliance fun also has long-lasting benefits. When you focus on working through the material as fast as possible just to get a passing score, you are encouraging workers to do the bare minimum. They won’t be as mentally engaged and will likely retain less information.
You may get a record of completion needed for compliance, but the learner won’t be enriched by the experience. They will likely miss information that might be needed to influence their on-the-job behavior and decisions. If you want compliance training to have an effect, then you need to encourage your team to engage with it in a positive way.
When you treat part of your training program as boring, then you will also send the message that other training is unimportant. Nurturing a culture of learning is how many businesses build a strong, adaptable workforce.
What can you do to make your compliance training more fun and exciting for your team?
Keep It Concise
Too much information at once is overwhelming. One of the first things you should do to motivate your team for learning and development in 2023 is to trim down your content. Not only will too much information make it harder to retain knowledge, but it can also cause learners to disengage.
Your trainees shouldn’t have to figure out which segments are important, and which are not. Only present the information they truly need to meet compliance requirements. This will also help streamline your training program so that employees spend less time in courses while getting a higher value out of the experience.
Add Visuals
Different people learn using different methods. Your compliance training shouldn’t only include text. It should also feature a lot of attention-grabbing visuals.
Work in photos, graphics, and videos. Many LMS platforms support interactive videos which combine text, audio, and video formats. This type of content is valued because it helps learners remember by not just showing them the information but sparking engagement with questions, quizzes, data highlights, and more.
Use Different Media
As stated above, some people get better results with different learning methods. Make sure you use a variety of media in your compliance training content. This will ensure that you meet all learning types and prevent your material from coming across as stale.
You can combine different media types as well. A video can have captions while an image can include a caption or audio file. Most LMS platforms also included a file repository that you can use to house and distribute documents, workbooks, and other necessary materials. eLearning makes it possible to address the needs of all learners.
Gamify Your Training
Gamification is one of the most popular ways to increase engagement in training. This approach adds a gaming element to courses. The type of gamification you use is up to you. Some organizations assign points to different activities. Learners earn points for completing those activities, giving them a place on a leaderboard or a badge on their company profile.
Others use actual games alongside course content. For example, a game called Cyber Crime Time lets users play as hackers who use common cyber attack techniques. There is colorful scenery and cartoonish characters, but the game still manages to spread cyber security awareness.
Your LMS can make corporate compliance easier if you know how to use it. Learn more about your platform’s features so you can create an effective, engaging compliance training program.