How to Make Compliance Training Engaging For Distance Learners

The COVID-19 crisis has forced companies to let their people work from home. This imposed experiment has shown that companies with work-from-home arrangements are not only viable, but they bring with them numerous benefits. What’s more, having had a taste of working from home, scores of workers are keen to remain remote. Having made the necessary investments to enable remote working, many organizations are planning to leave some, or all, of their employees at home as we emerge from the pandemic. 

How to Make Compliance Training Engaging For Distance Learners

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Permanent remote workforces will impose a great deal of change on companies. One department that will need to rethink their model is Learning and Development. Training remote workforces won’t be easy, especially for compliance training. Employees already have an aversion to compliance training, so when you add in the distractions of working from home — kids, pets, video games, etc. — compliance trainers have a tough road ahead. And traditional LMS training, already unpopular with workers, simply won’t be up to the task. 

In their search for effective remote training solutions, L&D departments will unquestionably consider gamification, but it’s not the answer. Game-based learning is.

Gamification is the process of tacking game elements onto your existing training in order to increase engagement. So when a learner finishes reading a PDF, you give them a badge. When they’ve read five PDF’s, they get on the leaderboard. The problem with gamification (we call it lamification!) is that the training content, which was the problem all along, doesn’t change. So while you might see an initial engagement spike when you implement badging, it won’t last.

Unlike gamification, game-based learning — when you morph your training content into a game so that people learn through play — drives lasting improvements. It’s more effort, but it works. And, to compete for the attention of at-home workers, it’s by far the best solution. 

Game-based learning’s ability to engage workers isn’t it's only advantage though. It’s also much more cost effective. On average, employees spend 47 hours training each year, resulting in $654 in lost productive time per employee. Game-based learning, on the other hand, is designed for 5-minutes of training per day. The microlearning format brings annual learning time down to just 22 hours per year, resulting in a cost savings of $301 per employee.

Okay, so it’s cheaper, but is it as effective? Yup. Even more so, because it drives distributed practice. Learners will play training games multiple times to improve their scores. Studies have shown that after 60 days, learners who trained through distributed practice retained as much as 25% more knowledge than those who took traditional training. 

Engaging and effective compliance training are well and good. But for compliance training you need in-depth tracking and analytics. Game-based training can deliver on this as well. Top platforms will have robust tracking and analytics features that provide organizations with rich insights about their staff. In addition to tracking completions, organizations are able to spot individual and organisational knowledge gaps, allowing them to shore up any areas of concern. 

Despite the massive upheaval caused by the COVID-19 crisis, companies still need their employees to complete compliance training. With many employees now permanently working from home, compliance trainers need better training solutions to engage remote workers. To tackle this challenge, compliance trainers should consider game-based learning. With its ability to engage learners and drive better learning outcomes, game-based learning might just be the most effective tactic for remote compliance training. So get ready to level up your training!

RB Compliance Consultancy has partnered with LemonadeLXP, an award-winning learning experience platform, to build a hub of addictive game-based compliance training courses. The learning experience consists of over 200 modules that cover everything from complaints handling to consumer credit. 

RB Compliance Consultancy and LemonadeLXP will host a webinar on game-based compliance training on June 24th. Tune in to see the future of compliance training in action!