Compliance training is the training which helps your employees learn and know how they can deal with policy-, ethical, and legal-related aspects of doing routine business. It’s often mandatory, thanks to agencies outside of your organisation. In short, it’s typically not negotiable to be in compliance with the demand that your employees themselves do compliance training.
The problem with the word choice of ‘compliance’ though is that it has quite a negative connotation to it. Some might remember previous compliance training or feel it’s just something that they’re forced to do. How can you possibly make your employees actually want to be in compliance with compliance training? It might sound cute, but it’s actually a good idea. Keep reading to learn specific ideas you can use to make their compliance training the kind of experience that results in a willingness to comply.
Do You Really Know What You Assume You Know?
When training is able to demonstrate to learners that they don’t actually know everything which they assume they do, it’s going to get their attention.
For instance, do you ever wonder what percentage of licensed automobile drivers definitely know and understand the rules of yielding at any four-way stop? The rules aren’t clear to all drivers, and you can show this in a video format to get a reaction. Many who watch it are going to quickly realise that they thought they knew the driving rules, but were either wrong or not totally right. You yourself might be included. Employees in training might sit there thinking they are wasting time on basic training on common sense things, but their thought patterns can quickly shift to being grateful for the training, even if it just refreshes their memory in time to stop them from making preventable mistakes or errors. That’s powerful.
Training Situations Can Be Tied to Real World Circumstances
Whenever possible, learners should be provided with realistic situations mirroring actual real-world concerns or dilemmas. GBS Corporate Training is a firm believer of this. Present circumstances that could get people to cross lines so they’re able to learn and experience virtual consequences instead of in reality. Give employees a chance and reason to talk about such situations and scenarios in a safe environment.
If you ever get a chance to read Dan and Chip Heath’s article titled ‘How to Make Company Training Rock’, you can learn a great example. One business turned their compliance training binder into video content the employees loved. They knew the compliance issues were full of reality-based drama, so they actually brought in a filmmaker to come up with 10 episodes that covered everything from superiors flirting with subordinates or attempting to pass improper expenses on to clients to teams just misrepresenting what expertise they had. It turned out to be comedic gold.
A new episode was slated to be released to the staff every Monday, but many professionals wound up tracking down future episodes in advance on the corporate server. Thousands of various employees were known to watch these training videos before they came out. The series served as a launching point to amp up the internal conversations regarding compliance. Individual episodes broke down barriers about certain conversations that employees previously didn’t feel like they could address openly without any shame. In short, the comedic gold was also golden for training.
Give Folks Choices
When anyone has choices, some of their reluctance and pressure is redirected or just vaporised.
For instance, if you have online training for your compliance training programs, then provide employees both mobile and desktop learning options so that they can choose where and when they learn and do them. Alternatively, also give your employees flexibility in their completion times, but of course without leaving things open-ended.
Look at the concept of ‘choice’ another way: if you want or need 100 percent compliance, or at least 100 percent of employees to pass with a high enough score, then the training has to be accessible to everyone. The minute someone can’t use the training, that number goes out the window. For instance, some employees might need content available in other languages.
Use Statistics to Prove Compliance
One major benefit of online training technology is that is it allows you to prove your workforce is actually in compliance. Other advantages of using an online training system to handle your compliance training include your capability to do the following:
- Train large numbers of employees, partners, and even customers with reused content.
- Make sure that all individuals get trained at similar levels with identical content and a consistent message, all in the same location or business unit.
- Come up with detailed reporting and training statistics.
- Get immediate test results.
- Give individualised completion certificates following each program.
- Save money and time through travel reduction.
- Come up with online courses fast using current training content.
- Upload audio, video, and any other files you have rich in content.
Compliance Need Not Exclude Fun
Compliance training might feel to your employees like a prison sentence, but it need not be one. Even if training is mandatory, it can still be easy, and even fun, to do. Use creativity to plug into the drama that is inherent to compliance issues. Be sure that participants are always learning new things. Prevent the scandals that preventable employee actions might generate or trigger. Using these ideas, you can make your employees actually willing to comply with your organisation’s mandated requirements for compliance training.