Taking Compliance Training Seriously
By Rick Nigol
 The Masie Center recently reported
that 60% of all new learning initiatives in large organizations are
driven by legal compliance regulations. They are scrambling to meet
the demands for training in a wide range of areas, including health
and safety, environmental regulation, privacy, financial reporting,
and human rights. And many see the advantage of reaching a dispersed
workforce with such training via eLearning. They can overcome the
challenges of time and distance to reach many people at once, and
have a record of such training having been completed (important for
compliance).
I have examined a lot of what passes for
eLearning compliance training and it isn't pretty. There is a great
deal of online tell-and-test memorization exercises, but very little
that aims at changing behaviours in the workplace. Because
compliance training is something that we HAVE to do, we tend to look
at it as a nuisance to be gotten through, rather than an opportunity
to effect real and beneficial change in the organization.
Unfortunately, many training departments look for
the fastest and cheapest way to be able to check compliance training
off the list. They buy something off the shelf or slap something
together themselves, make their employees endure it, and then
declare that they have met their obligations.
When the primary goal becomes checking off your
list, the focus is on the training, not the compliance.
What would happen if we turned things around? For
example, instead of starting with the objective of getting x number
of employees to complete hazardous materials handling training by x
date, we had an objective for our training of reducing hazardous
materials handling incidents by x per cent in the next year? I think
that this would focus our attention on creating a learning
intervention centred on changing the way that our employees actual
handle hazardous materials, not just on having them complete a
quick-and-dirty top-level program that allows us to check this off
our list.
Too many training departments confuse cost and
value when doing compliance training. Doing it right may cost a bit
more, but the value is in effecting positive change (e.g. lower
accident rates, less human rights complaints, positive financial
audit outcomes, zero environmental incidents, etc.), that not only
brings the organization into compliance, but improves the bottom
line.
Rick
Nigol is Co-Founder and Director
of Education for eLearn Campus.
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