No matter what kind of organization you’re running, your people need compliance training.
After all, almost every industry is subject to regulatory requirements, and they’ve all got a pretty strong incentive to make sure those requirements are met. As one McKinsey partner puts it, “there’s a dollar value attached to non-compliance”, especially for organizations that don’t keep up with regulation around common issues like privacy and cybersecurity.
That’s why investing in a robust learning infrastructure is so essential—not only to keep your employees aligned with best practices, but also to protect your organization from fines, sanctions, or any other kind of regulatory wrath!
Compliance Training: A Universal Challenge
If the need for compliance is widespread, the challenges involved are also being felt across the board.
Deloitte’s State of Compliance Survey 2021, for example, found that many compliance teams are experiencing “a reduction in their ability to meet all of the demands placed on them.”
As Deloitte’s survey points out, these rising pressures need to be addressed by tech solutions that increase efficiency and ensure compliance obligations are met. When it comes to keeping employees one step ahead of the regulators, this means investing in a Learning Management System (LMS) that gets your people up to speed quickly and comprehensively.
FURTHER READING | ‘How to Choose an LMS for Your Organization’
What’s the Cost of Compliance?
Compliance isn’t just challenging to manage—it also has financial implications. Just look at the expense involved for a compliance-heavy industry like finance. According to a report from the Conference of State Bank Supervisors (CSBS), compliance costs can make up 10.3% of personnel expenditure, 22.6% of legal expenses, and 42.3% of accounting and auditing costs.
This high outlay can make the cost of training software (a vital piece of the compliance puzzle) a hard pill for some organizations to swallow—especially when, in many cases, compliance courses are only needed once a year.
Does this mean you should be looking for the cheapest options out there? Not necessarily. After all, it’s essential that your people gain a thorough understanding of compliance best practices through training that works. At the same time, you’ll want to justify your investment by choosing an easy-to-use LMS that produces memorable, impactful, and up-to-date learning content.
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How To Make Your Compliance Training Process Smooth and Effective
1) Speed Up Your Onboarding Process
A 2021 survey from Gartner found that 91% of HR leaders were concerned about employee turnover “in the immediate future”. As such, many organizations—including those that aren’t used to high turnover—are preparing for influxes of new employees who need to rapidly absorb the latest compliance practices for your field, industry, or organization.
If you’re looking to make sure your new hires are meeting regulatory requirements from the word “go”, you’ll benefit from an LMS that makes the onboarding process as straightforward as possible. In a fast-paced or high-turnover environment, the last thing you need is a training system that your learners can’t get to grips with!
2) Improve Learning Retention By Spacing Out Compliance Courses
Keeping on top of regulatory requirements—especially in high-stakes or technically-demanding industries—isn’t easy. That’s why it’s vital to make sure your people aren’t overwhelmed with a flood of training material in one sitting.
Instead, consider spreading your compliance courses over a period of time in a process sometimes called “course chunking”. Not only does this make the learning feel more manageable, but it’ll also give your people a better chance of retaining that all-important compliance information.
By drip-feeding your training across weeks or months, your people will get used to checking in on compliance material on a regular basis. This can be a handy habit, especially given that compliance obligations are constantly changing and evolving over time.
LEARN MORE ABOUT COURSE CHUNKING | ‘Go Places With Bridge Journeys: Course Chunking for Learners’
3) Make It Easy to Update Your Courses
There are plenty of other ways to keep track of the ever-changing regulatory landscape.
Once you’ve established a robust routine of checking in with the latest compliance training, you need to make sure your LMS can maintain your learners’ pace with quick and straightforward updates.
By investing in an LMS with native course authoring, or one with advanced authoring features, your learners won’t miss out on any pieces of the compliance puzzle. Regular updates, made possible through the right course authoring tools, will help you fulfill your evolving obligations in the blink of an eye.
4) Let Your People Learn on Multiple Devices
Let’s be honest—compliance training isn’t anybody’s favorite task. Even when it’s broken down into digestible chunks, and even if it’s fully up to date, many learners will think of compliance training as a chore.
A key way around this challenge is to make the learning process as accessible and frictionless as possible. You can achieve this by giving your learners access to the courses they need on their mobile devices.
After all, why drag a delivery driver into your corporate office to do mandatory training they could just as easily complete in their truck? The right LMS will offer mobile apps for online and offline SCORM courses, and this kind of ease of use can be the difference between meeting and missing compliance deadlines.
5) Monitor and Measure Success With Strong Reporting
Getting your people to complete their courses is half the battle. The other half is making sure they pass.
This isn’t just a nice-to-have bonus for conscientious employers, but a legal necessity. You need to show that you’re keeping an eye on your employees’ compliance status, and—ideally—you’ll want to make sure you can see where and how they’re struggling with your learning materials.
With a robust reporting system underpinning your LMS, you’ll have all the data you need to stay on top of your people’s progress. The best analytics features are heavily customizable, offering you information filtered by categories including learner type, course type, and due dates.
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Take the Headache Out of Compliance Training With Bridge
Great compliance training requires great tooling. Bridge’s suite of products and features will ensure your people can quickly access and retain the knowledge they need to keep the regulators happy.
Keep on top of regulatory change by using our native authoring tool to update your courses, and use our Journeys feature to ensure your compliance content is delivered at a good pace and in a digestible format. Thanks to our strong reporting features, you’ll have the peace of mind that comes hand-in-hand with a progress record full of compliant and up-to-date employees.
