Compliance training is an essential part of any organization’s training program. Deeply engaging learners is more important than ever, and effective compliance training goes beyond ticking off boxes. It ensures employees are fully informed, aligned with company values, and prepared to navigate regulatory landscapes.
By making training interactive and engaging, organizations can foster a culture of compliance and mitigate risks more effectively. Understanding the specific drivers and business objectives behind your compliance training can help you choose the most effective innovative strategies.
What Is Compliance Training?
The definition of compliance training has broadened considerably over time and continues to do so. “Compliance training” and “mandatory training” were once terms associated exclusively with highly regulated sectors like financial services. They have now been adopted more widely to enforce legislative and regulatory requirements as well as educate employees on industry- and company-specific goals.
The drivers for compliance training often align with the top priorities for your organizations and senior management, such as:
- Meeting regulatory and legal requirements.
- Demonstrating to internal audit and senior management teams that employees have been informed of critical policies and procedures.
- Familiarizing new employees (and others) with the organization and its key values.
- Changing behavior and embedding culture in response to the increasing regulatory focus on conduct and ethics.
The Primary Drivers for Compliance Training
There are three main reasons to initiate compliance training:
1. To Address Legislative and Regulatory Requirements
The need for compliance training can sometimes be linked directly to a specific law or regulation. This may be sector-specific or cross-sectoral and may be explicit or implicit.
Explicit training requirements are prescriptive and establish the frequency and topics to be included. An example here is anti-money-laundering training in the financial services sector. This type of training is crucial in ensuring that employees understand and adhere to the laws and regulations that govern their industry, thereby reducing the risk of non-compliance and potential legal issues.
Implicit training requirements are less prescriptive and are often expressed as a requirement for organizations to demonstrate that they have taken “reasonable steps” to prevent specific types of harm. Training on the Bribery Act and the new Worker Protection Act are examples of this in the UK. This form of legislation and regulation, where the organization determines how it will address a requirement, is becoming more prevalent.
2. To Mitigate Risk
Compliance training also plays a crucial role in addressing various risks that organizations face beyond explicit or implicit regulatory requirements. These risks often include:
- Data protection and privacy
- Cybersecurity awareness
- Ethical standards and integrity
- Health and safety compliance
- Environmental compliance
By addressing these and other specific risks through targeted compliance training programs, organizations fulfill legal obligations and proactively protect their interests, enhance operational resilience, and maintain trust with stakeholders.
3. To Instill Company Values
Many organizations also require training on company values to align employees with an organization’s culture and goals or to set behavioral expectations. Training that instills company values often takes a “Who We Are” or “How We Work” approach. Examples of this type of training include educating employees on an organization’s code of conduct, DEI initiatives, and leadership expectations.
The New Wave of Engaging Compliance Training
Compliance training has a bad reputation for being long and text-heavy with unforgiving pass/fail standards, but many organizations are finding solutions to make it more engaging. They are designing compliance training differently by choosing more innovative learning approaches and moving away from the traditional end-of-course assessment.
As compliance training has evolved, it has started to employ the full range of potential learning solutions from campaigns that blend in-person training and eLearning with rich media, virtual reality, and games, moving compliance training out of the shadows to take its place among some of the best examples of corporate learning.
How to Select Your Compliance Training Approach
It can be overwhelming to determine the most engaging mode of learning your compliance training should take. Step one is to consider the reason for the training and the business and learning objectives. Other elements to consider include:
- The frequency of training (annually, biannually, just for onboarding, etc.)
- The scope of any legal or regulatory requirements
- The longevity of the content
- The level of risk associated with the topic
These elements will help you choose the most appropriate learning format.
The Best Approaches for the Top 3 Types of Compliance Training
Your business and learning objectives are also likely to fall into one of three categories: strategic, technical, or tactical—each of which lends itself particularly well to specific types of learning.
1. Strategic Compliance Training: Rich Media, Storytelling, and Animation
Strategic learning communicates broad conduct themes and messages to a diverse, often global, audience. This form of learning often involves high-profile “flagship” modules with strong cultural and brand engagement, such as code of conduct and ethics modules or awareness-level financial crime modules.
Strategic learning is well-suited for rich media that brings stories to life, using a variety of visual and creative approaches, including animation, film, and storytelling. A mixed media approach will help make content more compelling and help combat learner fatigue.
2. Technical Compliance Training: Adaptive Learning
Technical learning addresses specific knowledge and skill gaps. The content is likely to be role-specific, jurisdiction-specific, and competency-specific (i.e., it may depend on the learner’s experience and knowledge). As technical learning is designed to deliver specific messages at an employee level, the best learning methods are those that adapt to a learner’s level of understanding or in-module performance, such as:
- Role stranding: The content filters or is enhanced to provide a learning path that specifically matches the learner’s profile, role, and location.
- Elective branching: The learner takes control of directing their learning path.
- Performance branching: The path reflects the learner’s performance within the module by enhancing or skipping content depending on their competence and decision-making.
These approaches not only reduce learner seat time but also help fight learner burnout by presenting them with content that applies directly to them and is meaningful in their role.
3. Tactical Compliance Training: Just-in-Time Learning
Tactical learning drives behavioral change in response to specific internal or external issues and events. This type of learning is delivered in response to problems identified in audit or compliance reports, changes in procedures, new regulations and legislation, or to address a “learning curve” by reinforcing key messages.
Tactical learning calls for rapid, just-in-time learning that uses flexible and agile assets, such as microlearning opportunities, job aids, campaigns, and facilitated classroom sessions.
Microlearning helps reduce seat time by dividing content into short, easy-to-digest modules that deliver direct and targeted compliance messages that learners can easily fit into their working day. Job aids fill a similar function by allowing employees to reference learning materials as needed, rather than taking up their critical time with an entire course.
Why Engaging Compliance Training Matters
Investing in innovative and interactive training methods transforms compliance training into valuable learning experiences. This enhances employee performance and contributes to the overall success of the organization. In addition, it improves compliance culture and controls, building client trust and reducing the likelihood of legal or regulatory penalties.
By prioritizing engagement in compliance training, you safeguard your business and empower your workforce to align with company values and thrive in a complex regulatory landscape.
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