When compliance is not enough

Yesterday Tom Kuhlmann posted about Those Pesky Compliance Courses, making the point that compliance courses aren't usually performance based and therefore a 'course' is probably not what's really required; he recommends keeping them simple, putting a test up front so those who already know the rules can exempt themselves from the body of the material, and un-locking all the navigation, so no-one's forced to sit through something they don't need.

All good advice, as you would expect from Tom, but only assuming the whole process is just one of getting boxes ticked to satisfy an external regulator. If the material is really not relevant, then it makes sense to make the box-ticking exercise as painless as possible, like renewing your passport or some similar administrative chore.

Now i'm not going to pretend that I'm an expert on compliance courses. I've never had much to do with designing them and, as someone who hasn't been an employee for 30 years, only occasional cause to use one. It's just that, when I have been required to undertake a mandatory course, as I have recently as a result of a client engagement, it has seemed pretty important to me; important because my behaviour really could put me or my client at risk. Without doing the course, I don't think I would have been sensitised to the risk. If I just bluffed my way through a quiz or flipped across a few screens, I still wouldn't be sensitised, because I would not have been emotionally engaged (except, I must admit, in the challenge of passing the quiz). When the risks are small in terms of probability but serious in terms of consequence, mere compliance may be enough to get the boxes ticked, but wouldn't reduce the risk and that does matter.

So, if mere compliance is not enough, and you really need employees to take note, what would I recommend? Well, here's what works for me:

• Tell stories which show what could really happen. Make these completely realistic and without exaggeration. My favourite is acted video scenarios which play out in stages throughout the course. Because authenticity is the key, these need to be really well written, acted and directed. Not cheap I know, but powerful. If you really haven't got the budget, use photos instead although the dialogue still needs to be spot on. Ask challenging questions throughout the scenario which are directly related to the key principles and rules.
• Use real-life cases to show what has actually happened in your own or other organisations and how this affected not just the employer but the people involved. Great to tell these stories on video if you can.
• Keep the formal exposition of rules and policies as brief and top-level as possible. Stick to the absolute must-knows and reinforce these points often. Make absolutely clear where all the supporting information can be found and when and why this would be useful.
• Focus your assessments on the key behaviours you're looking to change, not on superficial knowledge which is easy to test. Whatever you do, avoid multi-answer questions in which you have to get every part right to score any points at all - these drive me mad!

And, of course, you cannot rely on e-learning to do the whole job. The key messages need to be constantly reinforced through other media and the behaviours need to be modelled from top managers down. There are times when the life of your company or of your employees could depend upon it.