9 Tips to Effective Compliance Training with an LMS

With the regulatory landscape becoming more and more complex, compliance as a norm has acquired a new and decisive status. The importance of Compliance Training can never be undermined because adherence to laws and regulations concerning a particular business is crucial. It helps alleviate risks, safeguard organizational reputation, and most importantly, ensure that there are no unnecessary legal tussles and penalties.

Companies too understand the importance of compliance-related training very well. A 2015 research by Brandon Hall Group revealed that almost half—49 percent—of organizations that were surveyed looked at Compliance Training either as a priority or as something critical to their business.

Traditionally, companies used archaic and, largely, ineffective methods for explaining regulations to their employees - by giving them colossal tomes with regulatory information. The efficacy of this system was, naturally, short-lived. But online training programs came as a panacea and achieving compliance standards became a tad easier.The areas where online training programs score over manual ones are legion. Online training not only brings in consistency in the delivery of content and increases its reach to a distributed workforce but also can be assigned to relevant 'roles/ designations' and be tracked. Further, online tests assure an assessment of the level of understanding while certificates can be stored for future references. Most importantly, instead of having someone manually keep a tab on ensuring that employees are updated by taking refresher courses/ retraining programs, the online programs automatically schedule these courses.

Playing a vital role in this is the Learning Management System (LMS) that makes the management of the compliance experience even better and easier. An LMS software comes with several quintessential benefits that allow administrators to administer, document, track and deliver retraining or Compliance courses.

Here’s a look at 9 tips to an effective Compliance Training with an LMS:

‍1. Use a Variety of Multimedia and Learning Elements

‍Different people have different learning curves, which means companies need to remember that not all employees can be trained equally. It is of utmost importance that the learning needs of everyone are taken into consideration especially in an online Compliance Training program because of the criticality of the subject matter and its implications to the company. How do companies do that? One way is by accommodating the learning needs of all learners, whether they are visual, acoustic, kinesthetic etc., by including different types of multimedia and learning elements in their Compliance Training strategy. Learning elements like eLearning courses, PDFs, PPTs, Videos, Infographics etc. with strong imagery, audio clips, interactivities etc. help in breaking the learning monotony and give a burst of freshness to the training program.

‍2. Take Advantage of Mobile Learning

‍Mobile Learning is a boon for Compliance Training as it gives employees the flexibility to access the training anytime and anywhere. A Responsive LMS goes a step beyond, enabling employees to even switch between devices and continue their learning seamlessly on any device of their choice. An employee is more likely to experience successful assimilation of the content and complete the training if he or she is able to begin a course from his/her desktop at work, continue the lesson on a smartphone while waiting for a lunch meeting, and then complete it on a weekend (why not?) on his or her laptop.

‍3. Make your LMS a One-stop shop for all things 'Compliance'

‍Since companies need to hold employee Compliance Training records for future references (including audits etc.), those that manage an extensive catalogue across geographic locations can face a tough time. An LMS can become a repository to hold training records, competencies, certificates and so on - simply at a click whenever and wherever needed. It is like a centralized data storage system with a summary of each trainee’s real time status, history, and future compliance training schedules. It also ensures that if someone has already taken a course before, he or she need not take it again. This is especially convenient for employees who come armed with compliance certificates from other organisations. An LMS gives an administrator the option to attach the employee’s certificate (achieved from outside the organization/ current LMS), so that there is no need to spend time over the course again.

‍4. Assess your Learners

‍Delivering learning elements to your employees is just half the job done. Assessing their understanding of the training and subject matter is crucial too. An LMS with strong Assessment capabilities help organizations is assigning various assessments (and assignments) to the learners i.e. employees.

‍5. Make it a Two-way Street

‍Online surveys, questionnaires, and polls provide an opportunity to the learners to share their opinions and voice their concerns. It is possible to quickly compile the information, identify trends, and pinpoint areas for improvement. Surveys and polls provide invaluable insight into the minds of employees, which can offer the opportunity to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current training strategy.

‍6. Track , Report and take Intelligent Decisions

‍Another benefit of an LMS software are the tracking and reporting features. With an LMS, reporting becomes fairly simple because one can draw a report to track and monitor progress of the employees. This data can be translated into meaningful information for devising better L&D strategies and improving processes. It's no surprise that L&D professionals need business intelligence today!

‍7. Don't Rely on your Learners' Memory Alone

‍Some courses may require employees to re-take a training course after a specified time-period to remain complaint. An LMS allows to send reminders to prompt learners to come back and re-certify on time. This feature is exceedingly useful because employees can stay updated through automatic reminders instead of manual notifications from concerned departments.Sending out notifications and reminders is a valuable feature not only for re-taking courses, but also to help learners cope up with deadlines. By using due dates, it is possible to deliver successful training results.

‍8. Make it 'Social

'The sharing of knowledge has many benefits to an organisation such as improved workflows and better teamwork. Collaborative learning is an approach which allows employees to work together along with instructors, to enrich learning through interaction with others. Most importantly, with the help of social media, learning can happen in an informal setting. Social media can also be leveraged as an effective tool for collaborative or social learning, the key being, how companies use this meaningfully to encourage exchange of ideas and knowledge sharing. Many social media tools support collaborative work, thereby allowing users to develop the skills of working in teams. Content is continually refreshed by the users themselves rather than requiring expensive expert input.

‍9. Keep them 'Compliant'. Always!

‍Most businesses and industry organizations rely on training as a way to move employees along their career path, often requiring completion of specific training modules for advancement. Some industries call for constant education or additional re-training to advance in the workforce. Having an LMS in place is an easy way to ensure that employees and their managers stay compliant all the time. Managers can outline the progression path for each position within the company, giving employees a clear understanding of what is required and how often they need to take re-training programmes to stay compliant.

If a company operates in a regulated industry, or even otherwise when safety is a big concern for most organisations, adopting a secure Learning Management System is the need of the hour.

‍Wish to deliver Compliance Training to your employees? Sign up for a 14-day Free Trial of the Best Value, SaaS LMS - UpsideLMS and see how you can make Compliance Training easy! Start your Free Trial