Using Microlearning In Compliance Training
Compliance training is a very important part of ensuring that your organization operates safely and in accordance with national and international laws. Compliance training is provided to every employee in the organization to help them understand the legal policies, regulations of the organization, as well as, to avoid any legal trouble and establish the smooth functioning of said organization. However, compliance training has a tendency to bore the living daylights out of employees, which often results in employees treating training as a convention, just to get it out of the way because it is mandatory, without actually learning about their legal responsibilities. Consequently, they don’t remember the training after a few months have passed, and can’t apply it when they’re required to, exposing the company to legal danger. The solution to this problem is simple, to ensure that compliance training is engaging and relevant to employees; that it is designed in a way as to banish boredom and ensure absorption and retention. Microlearning seems like the perfect learning strategy to accomplish all this, which is why we’re going to discuss it in this article. Read on to know how microlearning can be used to improve boring compliance training and maximize engagement.
1. Use Infographics To Convey Company Policies
Infographics are one of the most underrated yet powerful digital content formats to deliver focused learning to learners. An infographic only consists of text and images conveying key points and can be used to break down the company policies into simple topics, each covered with an infographic. The combination of images/icons and text makes it easier for learners to remember each key point in each topic of company policies e.g. dress code, anti-harassment, anti-discrimination, employee benefits, etc.
2. Use Simulations To Explain Procedures
Explaining procedures without demonstrating them can be a little bit difficult, and learning them without practising them can be even more so. Fortunately, you can do both using simulations. Simulations can help learners understand and carry out procedures in a virtual environment as if they were performing them themselves in real life. This ensures that employees practise procedures without any real-life risks while getting a sense of the consequences that will follow if procedures are not followed. For example, not wearing hard-hat while working in construction could result in a fatal injury. The best part, these simulations don’t need to be more than 5-minutes long, ensuring that the learners are not bored or distracted.
3. Use Videos To Demonstrate Complex Tasks
There are certain complex tasks that employees need to do to adhere to compliance policies—tasks that can only be demonstrated in-person by a trainer. Or, you could just record a trainer demonstrating the said tasks, turn it into a bite-sized video no longer than 5-minutes in length, and deliver it to learners/employees to watch on their smartphones. You could even add animations in the video to explain certain steps better. You can use such videos to demonstrate workplace safety, how to avoid discrimination and procedural stuff like that.
4. Real-Life Stories To Connect Emotionally
Compliance policies involve a number of sensitive topics such as sexual harassment, discrimination (age, racial or gender), bullying, violence and the like. In order to explain policies that help avoid these from happening, it is always better if the employees can connect emotionally with these occurrences. Using real-life stories of employees in other organizations that went through harassment, discrimination, or stories of employees who helped stop them in their organization, ensures learners get a point-of-view from the perspective of a victim, or an ideal employee, and get invested in stopping such occurrences from happening in their organization. These stories could be in the form of text, presentation, videos, or any other content format which can be turned into microlearning bits.
5. Scenarios To Help Employees Make Decisions
In order to avoid getting the organization into any legal trouble, the employees of the organization must know when to make quick decisions involving compliance policies when a situation arises. Scenarios in the form of choice-based questions, simulations, videos or interactivities help employees practise their decision-making skills regarding compliance policies. Scenarios must be challenging and preferably timed so that employees can feel the pressure of trying to make a decision in the spur of the moment.
Microlearning is an ingenious way to turn boring compliance training into short, concentrated and engaging learning units, that are easy to consume, absorb and retain. So start designing your microlearning compliance training today and make life easier for your employees, as well as your organization.
