E-learning and LMS blog articles

With increasing risks around cybersecurity and GDPR laws, along with rising pressures for businesses to place a greater focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, it’s now more important than ever to have a strong compliance programme. In fact, a 2023 survey found that ‘70% of corporate risk and compliance professionals said they have noticed a shift from check-the-box compliance to a more strategic approach over the past two to three years’. This strategic approach to compliance includes delivering effective and thorough compliance training courses. In this blog, we’ll explain how to achieve this with the help of a learning management system (LMS).

What is compliance training?

Compliance training is the process of ensuring employees have a clear understanding of what is expected of them, looking at the regulations they must adhere to, the guidelines they must follow, and the ethical standards they must maintain. Employees may be asked to complete mandatory compliance training courses; once completed employers will have proof of compliance across the entire workforce which, depending on the industry, may need to be shared with a governing body.

Want to find out more about the basics of compliance training? Read our blog.

Examples of compliance training courses:

• GDPR training for employees
• Health and safety training
• Diversity training
• Mandatory training determined by a regulatory body in industries such as pharmaceuticals
• Harassment-focused training

Why is compliance training so important?

• It helps keep employees safe
• It can help companies avoid regulatory fines and penalties
• It mitigates risks such as GDPR personal data breach
• It creates a consciousness regarding tolerance and ethical practices, helping to improve company culture

How to use an LMS to avoid the risk of non-compliance with automated compliance training courses

• Almost two-thirds (65%) of corporate risk and compliance professionals said using technology to streamline and automate manual processes would help reduce the complexity and cost of risk and compliance.

For businesses bound to strict regulatory compliance and regular audits, it’s of the utmost importance that compliance training is completed within deadlines and that compliance certifications don’t expire. The risk of non-compliance is increased when compliance training is delivered via manual procedures as human error may result in missed deadlines or outdated compliance training. To prevent this from happening, LMS automation tools can be used to deliver automated compliance training courses. With these tools, employees are automatically enrolled on compliance training courses, receiving notifications that let them know when they need to complete these courses or if their compliance certification is nearing expiration.

When Hubken client Arriva implemented Totara Learn to support its compliance training the organisation utilised its programme feature, enabling compliance training to be a fully automated process across the entire organisation. Arriva used this ‘to automate course assignments based on user profiles (for example, by sending out invitations to new starters as soon as they join, ensuring that they take part in mandatory compliance training)’.

Find out why Arriva won Totara's 2023 Best Compliance Experience Award with a Hubken solution.

Increase the chances of knowledge retention with LMS assessments

• Over 90% of surveyed employees who underwent compliance training did not learn anything from it.

To keep employees safe and to avoid fines and penalties, it’s imperative that compliance training is more than just a tick-box exercise but instead has a lasting impact on employees, with knowledge acquisition being the end goal. To determine whether employees are retaining their compliance training knowledge, employers can use LMS assessments.

LMS assessments can be employed to test employee knowledge by incorporating them into compliance training courses. Each course or training module could finish with a quiz or exam designed to test employees on what their learning. These assessments can be configured so that employees must meet certain criteria in order to pass and move on to the next topic, such as achieving a score of at least 80%.

With a wide array of possible content types, from multiple-choice quizzes to gamified drag-and-drop tests, LMS assessments can boost engagement and motivation levels, resulting in increased knowledge retention and a reduced risk of non-compliance.

Discover 5 ways to get the most out of LMS assessments.

Avoid delivering a basic compliance programme with engaging e-learning content

• Over 40% of companies consider their compliance programmes basic.

When compliance training courses feel generic, impersonal and require little interaction from learners, companies are likely to see lower engagement rates and knowledge retention rates. To avoid this, compliance teams can create highly engaging and interactive content using LMS content creation tools or by acquiring bespoke e-learning content.

With content formats and strategies such as microlearning, gamification, videos, and audio clips, compliance training courses can motivate learners and capture their attention – regardless of the subject matter. For example, scenario-based learning content is a highly interactive form of e-learning content that requires learners to play an active role in the learning experience. This form of training content is particularly useful for compliance training as it requires learners to make choices and then demonstrates the consequences of their choices.

Need risk-free training? Discover everything you need to know about scenario-based learning.

Use LMS reporting to save on time and resources

• 60% of GRC users still manage compliance manually with spreadsheets.

When it comes to compliance training, relying on manual processes to monitor compliance and gather evidence of training completion can significantly increase the risk of non-compliance. What’s more, managing compliance manually puts companies at risk of human error and takes up a significant amount of time and resources. To streamline compliance management processes and reduce the chance of costly mistakes, compliance teams should instead use LMS reporting tools.

LMS reports can be configured to gather data from across the entire platform, looking at areas such as assessment grades and engagement rates. Using this data, compliance teams can create audit trails which help them determine who has or hasn’t completed their compliance training courses, allowing them to easily provide evidence of company-wide compliance.

LMS Reporting: Visit our dedicated functionality page.

Deliver comprehensive compliance training courses with a Hubken LMS

Armed with the right e-learning tools and functionality, your organisation can maintain a high standard of compliance training and achieve better results – mitigating penalties and fines as a result. Our Totara and Moodle LMS solutions are used by many organisations of all sectors and sizes to deliver the highest standard of compliance training courses. Discover our solutions here or book a call with one of our experts today to find out what a Hubken solution can do for you.