As compliance programs have evolved, we’ve migrated toward an obsession with measurement. There are even positions carved out specifically for analytics. It makes sense. If/when something goes wrong, we need to be able to show evidence that we did our best to mitigate those risks. However, it’s widely known that most of these things that we are measuring don’t actually work. So what are we actually doing?!?

We send bloated, boring training filled with legalese and scare tactics and we do this annually. It’s gated so they can’t fast forward. Then we spend a large amount of time chasing down those completion rates and we do this with a finger-wag, i.e. “do it now or you will be penalized.” We measure with a knowledge check, which we give them immediately after you just gave them the answer. And to top it all off, it’s an open secret that employees are dreading it, doing laundry, checking emails and multitasking with the course playing in the background. The only thing they are actually learning is that they are annoyed with you. This is the most common method of training because it’s the easiest to measure. But we all know that it doesn’t work. This actually exacerbates your ability to mitigate risk, because employees do not speak up to ask questions and report concerns when they are bored, annoyed or afraid. You may have measured their understanding of compliance policies in theory, but you’ve actually increased the likelihood that a problem will occur.

• Train Less, Communicate More – People need reminding more than instruction. Short, snackable, trackable learning nudges are more effective the infrequent, longer training. Opt outs aren’t helpful easier. It saves time for them, but you lose your ability to influence behaviors. A major focus of these communications, nudges and microlearnings should be to promote the support system and speak up culture. To create psychological safety, we need to constantly remind people that there are safe ways to report bad behavior and that there is a sense of organizational justice. And if you want to promote things more regularly, infusing some creativity and entertainment into those touchpoints is helpful so you can increase visibility and engagement without message fatigue.
  • Measure click-through rates
  • Measure change in access to policies
  • Measure the amount of touchpoints

 

• Targeted Training & Microlearning – Training should be targeted to relevant audiences, action oriented, have some entertainment value and regularly reinforced. It’s far more effective to have 4 15-minute microlearnings than a 1-hour annual training. Simple, clear, actionable guidance with sprinkles of fun.
  • Measure E-learning – you have your traditional measurement. If it’s fun, your engagement levels should increase.
  • Measure Live Learning – this is almost always a better option. In those cases your taking attendance and/or certifying that they went through it.

 

• Engage & Involve Leaders – If we really want to be effective, we should have specific training for leaders about their additional responsibilities. And then packaging up short commercials for compliance and meetings-in-a-box and having these leaders or Ethics Ambassadors cascade these messages forward. Compliance is everyone’s responsibility so integrating compliance and speak up messaging into the flow of business is a more effective way to mitigate risk. Ensuring that these commercials and microlearnings are simple and fun, makes it more likely that they will be deployed without an eye-roll.
  • Measurement is having the leader certify that they deployed the video, game, microlearning, etc.

“Measurement is important. We should focus on proactively promoting the activities that help educate the workforce and that impact behaviors and then measure those things. Engagement first, then evidence.”

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Ronnie Feldman is the CEO & Creative Director at Learnings & Entertainments, a learning content provider made up of comedians and entertainers with a focus on corporate risk. www.LearningsEntertainments.com