Click Next… click Next… click Next… the sound of someone trying to get through their annual corporate compliance training as quickly as possible and get on with something useful.
When it comes to corporate compliance learning, such an important requirement really deserves the optimum learning design to ensure the material is consumed, retained, and applied appropriately. But often we are falling short of this, and it is just a ‘check-box’ activity.
The UK Code for Crown Prosecutors states that a “genuinely proactive and effective corporate compliance programme is a factor against prosecution” when a company has committed an offence; but there is no real guidance on what ‘effective’ looks like and so most businesses default to ensuring compliance training exists and they rarely focus on what the experience is like, how effective it is or what impact it has on individuals and their business.
An employee will often be asked to complete a long, one-off course once a year. Completion is tracked and the box is ticked. Simple, yes. Effective, no.
In fact, the British Chambers of Commerce states that up to 90% of corporate training is either forgotten, never understood, or never applied. When we consider the way training is deployed, this is hardly surprising.
Think about it this way, when you crammed for an exam in one sitting was it effective learning? Did you learn to drive in one lesson? Did you go to school and university and learn each topic in one session? Did you learn a language in one long, lesson? No, of course not. There was a curriculum in place, and you did a little bit over time until you built up the knowledge or the skill.
Corporate compliance learning is no different and the one-off approach isn’t working. We need to design it differently.
Learning is more effective when we break something complex down into shorter units where we cover one learning outcome per unit. Once that learning outcome is achieved, we can then build on that and give the learner the next, relevant unit. Between units, we can then do regular recall activities and remind the learner of the facts.
Spaced or distributed learning is gaining more attention and traction. There is a huge body of evidence that supports short burst of learning over time and highlights the benefits over a one-off, massed learning event.
In a paper by Harvard Business Publishing, Jeff DeSmet and Marisa Plowman talk through the benefits of learning in shorter segments over a longer duration. They state that it can lead to a richer and more lasting learning experience. They praise the benefits of practice, reflection, and repeated application.
In 2019, Beijing Normal University investigated the biological impact of spaced learning and found that electrical activity in the frontal area of the brain was much stronger than with massed learning events, indicating improved memory retention.
This ties in with the concept introduced by Hermann Ebbinghaus back in 1885, that states that information is forgotten if it is not reinforced. He claimed that if individuals are not encouraged to recall, apply, and reinforce what they’ve learned, it will gradually, and sometimes rapidly, be erased from their memory banks.
Fast forward nearly 140 years and spaced learning is still being discussed as an approach to counter the Forgetting Curve. It was even included in the Open University’s 2017 ‘Innovating Pedagogy’ report that proposed ten up-and-coming innovations in teaching that have the potential to alter educational practice. The power of spaced learning hasn’t been fully implemented into solutions and it does require a lot of planning to get the learning journey right, but it is well worth it.
With corporate compliance learning, spacing would provide more experiential and informal learning opportunities between formal events, including:
- thinking and reflecting on the concepts introduced during formal events, and their relevancy
- experimenting with new concepts on the job, and testing their applicability
- conversational learning via conversations with peers, bosses, and team members
Short bursts of learning allow us to create this blended approach and when we say short bursts, we don’t mean microlearning. We don’t want to chop up content, we want units to build up into a curriculum. A learner can then receive the best combination or pathway of units that works most effectively for them, over time.
The benefits are clear.
Concise units that are 10 minutes or less hold engagement, fit more easily into a busy schedule and can be referred to in the moment of need as a reference tool. If a piece of content changes, then the unit can easily be pulled and a new one put in its place. It then becomes a dynamic offering that keeps the learner up-to-date, and the business protected over the longer term.
This dynamic quality mirrors the one constant within the compliance industry, that the state of risk and compliance is ever-changing. Therefore, the learning in place needs to be just as dynamic.
When it comes to important compliance topics including Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Anti-Money Laundry, Anti-Bribery and Corruption, Data Protection… employees deserve the best learning experience and businesses benefit from getting this right.
We need to be going beyond the ‘check-box’ activity. Let’s do away with the massed learning events and the drudgery of the click Next… training experiences where learners are chased by the proverbial velvet stick to get it done. Let’s empower people with the knowledge and facts that they need to succeed. Let’s ensure training occurs throughout the year so individuals and businesses are compliant and protected, consistently and continuously.
Then, and only then, will individuals and businesses gain from benefits associated with compliance including improved processes, heightened ethical awareness and innovation, and improved performance – all of which can differentiate the company as an ethical leader in a busy marketspace.
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