Compliance Training Games: Turning Rules Into Quests And Learners Into Heroes
I foresee games that reduce our stress at work and dramatically increase our career satisfaction. – Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World
According to Gallup data, only 23% of employees would rate their compliance training as "excellent." It's often viewed as a formality that needs to be done, rather than something that holds interest and ensures learning retention. There could be a number of factors leading to this perception, such as a sense of irrelevance, lack of practical application, boredom, lack of context, inadequate feedback, and more. One popular strategy of positive disruption in this space is the gamification of compliance training. By introducing game elements such as points, simulations, a sense of improvement, immediate feedback, and storytelling, organizations can dramatically improve learner engagement and retention. Activica has been at the forefront of the gamification movement in professional development from the beginning and has tested several successful strategies.
Increased Engagement
While compliance training can have a reputation for feeling tedious, gamification makes learning interactive and enjoyable, increasing motivation to complete the training and boosting participation rates. For example, in Quest of Honor, participants engage in a fantasy, sword and sorcery-style role-playing game, where they can play as one of three different characters as they encounter various challenges and villains on their mission to the Castle of Compliance. The ethical code of conduct questions are contextualized in this fantasy world, and players are expected to apply the modern principles and policies in this mythical setting. Learners recontextualize their same imperative protocols and guidelines in a different background, proving true synthesis of learning objectives. Part of the gameplay also allows the learner to choose different characters, cards, and decisions, leading to a different game experience. This encourages game/course replayability, which, in turn, actively re-engages necessary lesson objectives, increasing engagement, retention, and application.
Quest of Honor
Improved Knowledge Retention
Game mechanics like repetition, feedback loops, and scenario-based learning help reinforce key information, making it more memorable than traditional training methods. In Mastercard's Corporate Security course, players walk through a building's physical security systems and protocols before encountering and identifying realistic security breaches. In this teaching game, the security information is explained in a realistic setting, and then the players apply that knowledge in scenario-based challenges where they see security concerns and face the ramifications of security violations. Learners are then given the option to try again and correct the error, thereby further solidifying integral knowledge retention. A snarky, humorous robot host also helps in the game's replayability, encouraging learners to explore different options to see the results of varied decision making and exhaust the potential narrative of the game, to, again, reinforce the lesson objectives with each iterative game turn.
Mastercard's Corporate Security
Real-Time Feedback And Reinforcement
Gamified platforms often provide immediate feedback on actions or choices. This helps learners quickly understand what they got right or wrong, and correct misconceptions in the moment. Instant feedback after each scenario encourages self-correction and a deeper understanding of compliance standards. In compliance training games like Ciena: Code of Conduct, learners face realistic scenarios to test their knowledge acquisition and application skills and receive immediate instructive and corrective feedback. The assessment is built into the game and serves an instructional function, where participants are learning from an authentic assessment. The assessment is built into the gameplay, in service of the lesson objectives. If the worst-case scenario is a punitive summative assessment delivering notice of course failure, then these regular, scenario-based formative assessments provide real-time corrective opportunity to better the learning experience of the participant.
Ciena: Code of Conduct
Behavioral Change Through Motivation
Game elements like rewards and leveling up tap into intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, helping to drive behavioral change—the ultimate goal of compliance training. By building factors that make the learner want to play, you are designing and embedding factors that make the player want to learn. When successful learners advance in a game, it motivates them to play and learn. At the heart of any game, to be good at a game, the player is learning the game, whether it's basketball, Monopoly, or Final Fantasy. In gamified compliance training, to be good at the game, part of what the player is learning is the stated lesson objectives. In a game like Activica's Consciouslands, a fully fledged, sci-fi game about unconscious bias designed and developed for Walmart, the player explores alien landscapes and must learn how to navigate unconscious bias, whether it is another character's unconscious bias or their own. Successful communication allows them to advance in the game (or "level up"), and they are rewarded with points on their relationship meter. These are extrinsic motivators that lead to intrinsic motivation, where the learner is recognizing and adapting their own unconscious bias.
Consciouslands
Reduced Risk Of Noncompliance
By increasing understanding and recall, gamification helps ensure employees truly internalize policies, reducing the risk of costly compliance failures. Simulations of compliance dilemmas help prepare employees to make the right choice in real-life situations. In Activica's SOX Blocks, a Jeopardy!-style game show, players interact with a series of true-to-life situations where they put their SOX (the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, a law pertaining to financial record keeping) knowledge into practice. In terms of compliance training, it is not enough that learners know the rules; they need to know how and when to apply the rules. In an assessment game like SOX Blocks, learners confront a rapid-fire series of questions and scenarios with increasing difficulty and specificity. The learner needs to apply the correct policies to the precise situation to be successful at the game.
SOX Blocks
Gamified compliance training offers increased motivation, engagement, retention, application, and reinforcement. Gamified systems generate detailed performance data that Learning and Development teams can use to identify knowledge gaps, track progress, and measure compliance at both the individual and organizational level. Analytics can reveal which compliance areas are most misunderstood, enabling targeted follow-up. In a global economy, gamified modules are easily scalable across geographies and teams. They can be reused, updated, and personalized to address local laws, industry standards, or role-specific requirements. A gamified compliance module can be customized for different departments while maintaining core legal compliance. This is a strategy where L&D teams wholeheartedly embrace the tried-and-true belief that learning is fun.
Gamification is a key strategy with proven, effective results that makes learners want to play and players want to learn.
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