How to design engaging compliance training

A lack of comprehensive compliance training can cost organizations millions. In fact, in a single non-compliance event, organizations lose an average of $4 million in revenue.

Despite how important compliance training is, this type of learning is often a sore subject for companies that have competing priorities. For highly regulated industries like financial services, technology, and manufacturing — where rules and regulations change frequently — keeping employees compliant can be challenging. Not only are business leaders tasked with staying up to date themselves, but they’re expected to teach and engage employees too, all while navigating the challenges that come with it.

Why is compliance training so important?

Compliance training is more than a checkbox. Staying up to date with changing compliance is not only a requirement but an essential strategy for staying relevant and competitive within saturated industries.

Compliance training often helps with:

• Risk management and legal protections: Compliance training prevents various threats by teaching employees the potential risks and proper procedures. This includes financial risks (fraud, embezzlement), operational risks (data breaches, safety incidents), and strategic risks (loss of license to operate). Compliance training also provides organizations with a crucial legal shield, reducing the likelihood of inadvertent violations.

• Reputation preservation and competitive edge: Compliance training helps maintain a positive corporate image with the public and external stakeholders like investors or shareholders, by ensuring ethical practice and regulatory adherence. Plus, in highly regulated industries, robust compliance can set an organization apart from its competitors. 

• Safety: Comprehensive compliance can prevent disaster for both employees and the public. Forklift safety/operating heavy machinery protocols, for example, safeguard manufacturing employees from bodily harm, while compliance with anti-money laundering policies protects the financial services industry.

Employees who are well-versed in compliance and regulations are likely to be more productive and efficient in their day-to-day work as well, as opposed to employees who are working with outdated knowledge.

The challenges of compliance training

In highly regulated industries, finding compliance training that is both effective and engaging is difficult. Compliance training today is often:

• Ineffective: Gallup reports that of those who have participated in a compliance or ethics training session within the past 12 months, only 23% of employees would rate that compliance training as "excellent." And nine out of ten employees couldn't tell much of a difference between their workplace pre-training versus post-training.
  
• Outdated: Inadequate resources were one of the top three factors cited in a survey by our content partner and compliance expert, Reuters, as obstacles to a team’s confidence in addressing compliance risks. For highly regulated industries, this is even more of a pressing issue: With compliance regulations changing so often, it’s hard to find accurate or updated content.

• Time-consuming: Regulated industries tend to have extremely time-poor employees. It can be hard to ask teams to dedicate hours of their days to training for compliance when they’re bogged down by so many other tasks.

How to implement effective compliance training and enhance employee knowledge retention

Employers can use several different techniques and strategies to bring in compliance training that shows results and resonates with employees, like leveraging:

• Evaluation tools: Organizations often invest in and deploy training only to quickly find out that it’s ineffective. Before disseminating company-wide compliance training, evaluate if a course meets your employees’ needs by previewing learning outcomes, course summaries, skills covered, and course ratings.
  
• Hyper-prevalent content: Choose a provider that consistently updates course offerings to reflect the latest regulatory changes so employees aren’t engaging in content that will be outdated in just a few weeks, and you don’t have to keep track of changes in programs. For organizations with ever-changing compliance requirements, a content aggregator like Go1 is a great solution. With thousands of compliance courses from industry-leading providers to choose from, you can worry less about shifting strategies. As regulations change, so do the courses.
  
• Employee autonomy: Employees are incredibly busy and often don’t have time to sit in a physical training about compliance — especially if they're remote or hybrid. Instead, offer mobile-friendly sessions that can be completed asynchronously.
  
• Gamification: One of the best ways to increase knowledge retention when it comes to compliance training is to include gamification. In fact, 72% of professionals say gamification inspires them to work harder. 
  
• Interactive training: Provide engaging and applicable training through the application of compliance knowledge in simulated or controlled environments, or use content that references real-world scenarios and case studies. The more that organizations can connect learned material to actual, everyday circumstances, the better. If you’re looking for ideas, check out this virtual engagement cheat sheet to get started.
  
• Continuous assessment: Employees want to feel listened to. They want to have a say in the assigned compliance training. When disseminating materials within the company, be sure to constantly consider whether the material is engaging and making a difference in your workforce. And always remember to ask for feedback. In doing so, you’ll be able to address knowledge gaps, improve content, and try different approaches if needed.
  
• Personalized learning paths: Instead of asking every employee within your organization to review the same compliance material, tailor training content to specific roles and departments. A more targeted approach ensures employees receive relevant information and reduces cognitive overload. With tools like Go1 AI, L&D teams can create playlists or programs based on the unique goals and parameters for each team, and curate highly relevant and personalized learning in seconds, for any employee. 

Take the challenges out of compliance training

Though plenty of organizations struggle with compliance training, deploying the right tools and strategies can lead to success. Mandy Rutherford, Wave Utilities’ L&D Manager, knows that to be true. Since using Go1 for compliance, her training now has a 98% completion rate. She says that Wave finally feels like they’re “At the forefront of learning.”

Though compliance training is often not the most glamorous part of working in a highly regulated field, the benefits of disseminating and reinforcing compliance within your organization are priceless. When your team is up to date on compliance, your company can mitigate risks, save money, and create a company culture where everyone feels in the know.

With Go1, organizations can take the challenges out of compliance training and deliver high-quality, relevant, accessible, and engaging content that sets your company up for success. From creating custom learning paths to accessing 100+ pre-curated playlists aligned to a broad range of skill development needs, your organization can make compliance training a simple and effective part of your everyday operations. 

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