Does Your Compliance Training Need a Makeover?

Are you in charge of your company’s compliance with the latest laws and regulations? Things change so quickly that what might have been compliant one day could change the next. Supervisors and managers must understand how to be in compliance and as your employees apply the rules and regulations to their work, you may find great disparities in their knowledge base.

What Is Compliance Training?

Compliance training is defined as employee training mandated by legislation, regulation or policy. This training educates your employees on the laws and regulations applicable to their job function or industry. The purpose of these laws is to maintain safety and client confidentiality in the workplace. It can also apply to employees and their rights at work. Compliance training programs cover a wide swath of areas, including trade secrets, records management and information confidentiality.

Code Of Conduct vs Compliance Training

Most companies put compliance information in their company codes of conduct. A compliance-based code is not the same as company requirements; there can be severe repercussions for compliance violations, including legal action that can harm your company’s reputation. If compliance training within your organization has consisted of few workshops and asking new employees to read the Code of Conduct, your specific program may not be addressing the problems that could arise from poorly designed compliance training programs.

The harm to your company could take years to repair. To ensure this does not happen, take precautions and choose a compliance training that informs everyone in the office.

Provide Training And Development Effective For Everyone

Successful staff development and training relies on successful communication between staff, supervisors, and human resource personnel. Many of the things that will help us connect with today’s diverse workforce come with understanding their generational points of view.

Consider another factor: Millennials and Generation Z are fast becoming the most dominant members of the workforce. As experienced and knowledgeable workers retire or change jobs, you may not have a long-term workforce to rely on to carry out compliance regulations. You will also be replacing these workers with employees from the same generation. Asking them to read and study compliance rules and regulations may not be the best approach for compliance training.

Millennials were the first generation to grow up in the digital age. They want to learn, grow and develop on-the-job, but not through long, boring presentations where they will lose interest within seven to ten minutes maximum.

What Is The Best Approach To Your Compliance Training Program?

Three ideas emerge:

• Microlearning
• Interactive Scenarios
• Storytelling

Microlearning

There is a new trend in learning that has the potential to be very big — because it is so very small. Microlearning is a method for teaching and delivering content to learners in small, specific bursts where learners are in control of what and when they’re learning. Often referred to as an espresso shot for the mind, Microlearning enables users to learn nuggets of valuable information in a short amount of time.

It is estimated that by 2025, millennials will make up that 75 percent of the workforce. The average attention span of the millennial generation is eight seconds. It is clear that training, classes, and education will need microlearning more than ever.

Microlearning are short video lessons (about two to five minutes) that have a specific objective.  They use a lot of visuals and narratives. They get right to the point and eliminate extraneous details. Remember, do not get repetitive; younger workers are technology savvy and can go back and review points they do not understand on their own. A key point is to make the learning flexible, even if it is required. Let the worker choose the time and place to learn about compliance.

Interactive Scenarios

Because of younger workers’ familiarity with using technology, companies are turning to Learning Management Systems (LMS) to supply videos tailored specifically to compliance. Instead of just giving facts and bullet points, interactive scenarios incorporate realism, choices and interaction in a learner-centric presentation. This approach allows learners to make choices and get immediate feedback about their decisions. It gives them a chance to apply their skills and knowledge to situations that mimic those they may encounter on the job.

eLearning courses are great for interacting with your employees in a fun and informative way during the compliance training course. The amount of free information and content available in various forms of media allow you to find a number of high-quality videos to use in your course. Videos offer a great way to get people’s attention and convey information. They can also be integrated with games and quizzes to promote even more interaction.

Interested in changing your employee training? Learn more about virtual learning tools and how they can add amusement to your training solutions.

Tell A Story

What better way to illustrate the importance of and need for compliance regulations and training than telling a story? Stories supply the emotional link between the dry facts and regulations and how they can impact individuals and companies. They can motivate and make workers care about compliance regulations when they understand how being in non-compliance can hurt or damage someone or the company.

If you are still putting on the same old compliance training workshops with the same old tired PowerPoint and handouts, your program is in need of a much-needed makeover starting today. Learning Management Systems are in the business of providing customized training modules by using the latest technology that incorporates your specific requirements into the product at reasonable prices.

Investing up front will result in greater quality of training, a more engaged staff and the ability to modify information into reusable formats and immediate responses. So, breathe a sigh of relief as you say goodbye to your PowerPoint presentation on compliance. You will be glad you made the change.

Next Steps

Ready to start your training? The KnowledgeCity Learning Library offers more than 14,000 online video courses to teach your employees how to be a better worker. Jump-start your training program today!