Compliance training is designed to show employees what they can do to better comply with legal, ethical, and policy responsibilities. The force encouraging employees to undergo compliance training is frequently an external one. Compliance training itself typically becomes a mandated, non-negotiable obligation.

It is no wonder that the term ‘compliance’ itself has accumulated a host of bad connotations. It’s something imposed forcefully on employees. Past compliance training experiences may leave negative memories. There are plenty of reasons you may find your employees unenthusiastic about compliance training.

To encourage more enthusiastic participation in compliance training, keep the following ideas in mind:

You May Not Know as Much as You Think You Do

“Training programmes stand a better chance of catching participants’ interest if they can make them realise there are unexpected gaps in their actual knowledge base,’ say experts at GBS Corporate Training.

As a simple example, take a quick look at the online videos. It provides a thorough breakdown of the proper yielding rules which govern a four-way stop. This is something every licensed driver assumes he or she knows intimately. Yet when I compared my own working understanding of the yield rules to the proper ones presented in the online videos, I discovered several points where my knowledge was lacking. How did your own experience stack up?

Demonstrating these knowledge gaps can transform compliance training. Participant attitudes shift from “I hate wasting time with this common sense material” to “It’s a good thing I had my memory refreshed on this topic; I may have made an easy-to-avoid mistake otherwise.”

Coach Training Scenarios in Real-world Context

Compliance learners should always be presented with realistic problems during learning scenarios. This is effectively a form of gamification. Scenarios that make the temptation of non-compliance reasonable give learners the opportunity to explore potential consequences in a virtual way. Participants need the opportunity (and reason) to discuss their training scenarios in a non-judgmental environment.

Dan and Chip Heath wrote an excellent article (“How to Make Company Training Rock”) on how it’s possible to turn a boring training binder into must-see TV. One company’s training team recognised that the challenges of compliance issues are actually heaped with dramatic potential. The team proceeded to hire a professional filmmaker to create 10 illustrative episodes. They covered problematic topics – including unwanted sexual advances, lying about expertise, and fraudulent expenses charged to clients – in a comedic way that made the material far more engaging.

The training team scheduled each new episode for a weekly release. The episodes proved so popular, though, that employees took the initiative to ferret out upcoming episodes from the company’s staging server. Even before they were released, the training videos captured an audience of thousands. Best of all, the engaging material prompted the start of many internal conversations about compliance topics. The comedic approach made it easier to talk about challenging topics. By taking the material less seriously, this training team succeeded wildly at getting learners to engage with it.

Incorporate Choice

When employees in compliance training get options, the choices vent off a lot of their reluctance for the training.

Online compliance training programmes, for instance, can provide participants with a wider range of learning options by including both desktop and mobile options. Training timeframes can be made flexible as well. You need not make training completely open-ended to give learners some very welcome choice in when they do their learning.

Choice is about accommodating more than just your employees’ whims, though. Achieving 100 per cent compliance – all employees completing training with a passing score – obliges you to deliver the training materials in a way that every employee can use. This may call for multilingual or disability-accessible training materials.

Track Compliance Performance

Online training tools are tremendously convenient for compliance training. It’s not just the learners who benefit, though! Online systems also make it easy for you to record, track and analyse training performance. Compliance training is a waste of time if all that you can say afterwards is that your workforce went through it. Back that statement up with facts!

Online training systems deliver a huge range of different benefits:

• Simplify training employees, partners, or customers in large numbers while reusing content efficiently.
• Standardise training so that every participant sees the same content and reaches the same level of training. Standardisation can span time periods and geographical regions.
• Detailed statistics on training are generated, recorded, and analysed.
• Test results are available without delay.
• Minimise the need for training teams to travel, reducing costs significantly.
• Generate customised completion certificates.
• Convert existing training material into online courses.
• Incorporate content-rich materials (video, audio, etc.) into training programmes.

Compliance Can Be Fun

Don’t make compliance training something that lands on your employees like a prison sentence. You can make mandatory training programmes fun and engaging. Tap into the dramatic possibilities inherent in compliance problems. Deliver new and useful information and make your employees eager to fulfil their compliance training responsibilities.