Compliance Learning: How To Make It Exciting Again
Compliance training is developed to educate learners about different policies and procedures. Compliance topics vary between topics for security, safety, human resources like sexual harassment, conducts, and ethics. They often require having policy statements and various other definitions including legal jargons that can be challenging to any learner to remain engaged for the entirety.
The aim of these compliance trainings in any institution or any organization is to educate minds on the various acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in an organization. Learners need to understand the material in order to feel motivated and to retain the knowledge provided during the training. Therefore, to motivate a change in behavior and help retain knowledge, real-life stories, case studies, scenarios, videos, and animations can be used in compliance training.
Let’s take a look into using these techniques in detail:
1. Storytelling
Storytelling has been a powerful form of communication long before even humans could read and write. Ancient men would gather around the fire exchanging stories of hunting and their bravery skills. Stories help to connect events and create meaning. Facts and context can be connected with emotions to create stories. Our brain is wired to remember patterns. Stories help stimulate the brain that in turn can make an impact. and they have always helped us to communicate better and be connected to the audience on an emotional level. Stories can make the heart racing fast, tears can start rolling from one’s eyes, and a person might get a physical reaction like goosebumps when listening to a story. Think of it like when using stories the learners will feel engaged and will most likely want to listen further. Stories are persuasive, and they help us to better convey our messages to promote a change. The learners will be more inspired, and we will be able to observe the change in their behaviors and attitudes. This method can often be used when conducting an in-person face to face training.
2. Short Animated Videos
Microlearning is now a trend in the recent training and learning industry. The learning content is distributed in bite-sized, small chunks that last for a few minutes. These videos are and can be used as a nugget for compliance training. The videos are often humor based and last less than 5 minutes when the learner gets introduced to a few characters and some important compliance topics and procedures. They can quickly capture the attention of the learners and can resonate with the workforce; which then helps create an unforgettable learning experience for the learners. For creating these videos, Subject Matter Experts need to be involved, a script needs to be created and reviewed, and different types of media can be used to make it more engaging and entertaining for the learners. These short animated videos can be easily embedded in the Learning Management System or on a website for learners to use.
3. Scenarios And Case Studies
Scenario-based learning is nothing new in the learning industry. It is often used by trainers to challenge the learners. Scenarios are designed and then presented to learners as case studies where learners have to take decisions or actions accordingly. The learners then learn from the outcomes of their actions. This is an interactive approach which keeps the learners engaged and allows critical thinking at the same time. Scenarios can be branched where the learners have to be in a situation which will require them to make decisions on a compliance-related situation like harassment or safety issues. Branched scenarios often give learners a great way to practice situations which are realistic, and they can select their actions which best comply with the legal and ethical policy guidelines of the institution. This type of scenario is also capable to show them the consequences of their decisions. When designing this type of learning, the level of complexity for the outcome and the number of outcomes expected can be defined. Scenario-based learning can be developed using various authoring tools in the market.
Combining humor, fun, animated short videos, interesting and engaging stories, scenarios to encourage critical thinking are just a few ways that can be used to make your organization compliance training less mundane and more exciting.
