When I tell strangers at parties that my company develops training programs, they’ll often start talking about some terribly designed sexual harassment or safety course that their employer forced them to take.  And while I’ll quickly try to explain how our company doesn’t create that kind of training, those people have a point: most compliance training is embarrassingly bad, instructionally ineffective and only exists so the organization can say “We told our employees not to do that” should a team member’s actions result in a lawsuit.  

Granted, some degree of “told you so” compliance training is necessary to shield organizations from liability and regulatory fines.  But is there a better way to deliver compliance training than having workers click through slide after slide of legal disclaimers then answer insultingly basic true/false questions?   Can compliance training actually change behavior and prevent fines and lawsuits in the first place?

While it might not be appropriate for every situation, we encourage organizations to try having workers conduct a simplified version of the “job risk analysis” that HR, legal and safety professionals would perform when designing compliance training.   While they might not know enough about the job and working environment to anticipate all of the risks, the more people can discover for themselves, the more likely they are to retain and internalize it.

As part of onboarding, you can include an activity where participants: