When the time of year rolls around for a compliance training renewal, you should have peace of mind that it will resonate with employees and shape their behavior in the way intended. Whether you're enforcing industry regulations, local or federal laws, or workplace policies, effective training stems from a strong learning culture reinforced by the right learning management system.
Why engaging compliance training matters
According to Deloitte, only 68% of firms even try to measure the effectiveness of their compliance programs internally. The most common metric used is completion rates of relevant trainings, but that alone will not paint a complete picture of behavioral change. After completing training, employees might adhere to rules for a few days, but resume unsafe behaviors once the annual inspection is over. A checkbox approach to compliance is unlikely to lower your organization's regulatory risk. Here are three ways to make your learning stick.
1. Make compliance cultural
Compliance is an extension of your organization's code of ethics, so present it as a positive part of company culture. Human emotion is strongly tied to attention and information retention, according to academic research published in Frontiers in Psychology. When your training resonates with the personal values of your employees, you humanize your efforts. Connect your trainings to the values they reinforce, such as safety, inclusion and industry excellence. An LMS that integrates into employees' flow of work makes training modules a seamless addition to a company's learning culture. Employees can forego the frustration of learning a new platform and remembering yet another password. An integrated LMS will be welcomed as another aspect of the day to day.
2. Storify compliance
Storytelling is an ancient but effective tactic for making information memorable, so use your LMS to tell compelling stories about why complying with regulations should matter to learners. You can reference real-world scenarios or develop multimedia stories with fabricated characters, events and a climax that illustrates the consequences of noncompliance. This can add critical context for challenging subject matter, such as your organization's information security policy or customer privacy requirements. Turn your stories into simulations to further boost training success rates. Immersive learning techniques can improve stickiness by putting your learner in a decision-making mode, which "forces behavior and reaction in a near real time frame," according to the eLearning Guild. Featuring real employees and stakeholders in the audio or video for your simulation can further personalize the training.
3. Manage risk
As you rally your workforce around compliance, remember the importance of developing compelling content for external audiences, too. Managing third-party risk was the greatest compliance-related challenge for 47% of organizations, according to the Deloitte survey. Offering streamlined training can differentiate your business if it also keeps partners, members and resellers engaged and committed to following regulatory best practices.
How to measure your success
To understand the impact of your learning and development program on your organization's risk, adopt key performance indicators (KPIs) that tell a richer story than coursework completion. Integrating customized quizzes and ongoing learning modules within native applications and processes can reveal employee learning behaviors in their actual workflow. Capture shifts across learner populations by adopting KPIs that measure behavioral change, including policy adherence, employee-initiated compliance reporting and policy violations. If you have company buy-in but worry about your ability to develop and maintain curricula, consider which option is right for you: a custom-built solution or prepackaged LMS focused on common workforce policies. Finding the right LMS partner will allow you to concentrate on course enhancements and engagement as you get started, rather than content creation and heavy platform oversight. You'll then have the time needed to implement the LMS strategy your organization needs to thrive. [skyword_tracking /]
