After weeks of sharing, discussing and deliberating, earlier this week we announced the winners of our ‘Shoot to Share’ experiment.

The quality of the videos was fantastic, and everyone has their favourite. The number of views alone shows just how valuable our video library is – despite its ‘social learning on a shoestring’ nature. But, as every L&D professional knows, true evaluation relies on more than just stats. We spoke to colleagues, customers, friends and associates to find out what they thought and which videos they found most useful or valuable.

So, without further ado, here are our top three video contributors with a little bit about why we loved what they had to say.

• In third place: Craig Taylor, Urenco

Despite Craig’s role as a learning technologist, his video is actually about combining on-screen activity with real-world tasks away from the computer. We asked Craig what his favourite e-learning interaction is and why. He earned his first brownie point by considering his answer from the perspective of a learner as well as a designer – putting yourself in the learner’s shoes is one of our ID mantras. Craig went on to explain that, for him, the best interactions are those that encourage learners to get up and do something to put the e-learning into context or into practice. Free-text responses need a bit of clever thinking in terms of constructive evaluation and feedback, but we’re big advocates of blended learning and so Craig’s preference for thinking beyond the confines of the computer when designing a self-paced e-learning course gets a thumbs-up from us!

• In second place: Jack Beaman, Fusion Universal

Fusion Universal certainly made a big impact at Learning Technologies, what with their bright pink stand and their exciting new social learning platform – so who better to provide a succinct summary of what’s important about social learning? Jack hits the nail on the head when he recommends transferring practices from our home lives into our work lives. If we need to find something out at home, we don’t book ourselves onto a course or seek out an expert; we turn to Google, YouTube, or whoever happens to be in the room at the time. This, for Jack, is exactly what social learning in the workplace is all about: capturing knowledge across the organisation, and sharing it as widely as possible. We wholeheartedly agree with Jack’s top three tips for doing this effectively: make it short, instantly accessible, and searchable. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Jack!

• In first place (drum roll please…): Matt Brewer, Chubb Insurance

Lots of people are able to talk about the things that are wrong with compliance e-learning but struggle to provide tips for how to do it right. Matt is not one of these people! Instead, he makes great use of his 88 seconds to tackle the question of what we can do to make compliance training more effective. What we love about Matt’s video is that he doesn’t just throw out the true-but-tired adjectives (‘practical’, ‘interesting’, ‘realistic’) – instead, he provides some concrete ideas that you can go away and try for yourself. We’re big fans of these top tips from Matt: identify the desired outcomes and select the content accordingly, rather than just chucking everything in; explain why as well as what – provide links to background information or real-life supporting evidence on the topic; and show the consequences of non-compliance, not just for the company, but for individuals. We urge you to keep Matt’s tips in mind when designing your next compliance course – he knows his stuff!

Matt is now the proud new owner of a Flip video camera (the same equipment we used to film all our contributors) – no doubt this fabulous prize will come in handy at family gatherings, but we hope Matt will also use it at work to start developing his own ‘shoot to share’ culture. Congrats Matt, and let us know how you get on!

So, there you have it. Thanks to everyone who contributed to our video library, and to everyone who shared and provided feedback on the clips. If you haven’t yet seen these videos, they and the rest of the library can still be watched on our YouTube channel. Whether you’re looking for tips on making the most of social media, want to find out exactly what a QR code is, or need some ideas for evaluating your e-learning, there’s a video for you!

As compliance managers and training managers will (hopefully) already be aware, the Bribery Act 2010 will be coming into effect on 1^st July this year. That means the clock is now ticking – there are less than three months left in which organisations can train their people to ensure they and the business stay on the right side of the law.

It can, as with any legislation, be difficult to identify the absolute key points amongst the pages and pages of legal language. This is especially true because bribery itself and bribery legislation are nothing new. So allow me to do the hard work for you and highlight what you really need to know about the Bribery Act 2010.

• It’s tough. In fact, it’s been described as ‘the toughest anti-corruption legislation in the world’. As a result, it’s easier to breach than previous legislation. What’s more, ignorance or the lack of corrupt intent is no excuse.
• The results of such breaches are severe. Reputational damage or a fine for the organisation might not matter hugely to individual employees. Criminal prosecution and jail sentences for individuals at all levels of the corporate hierarchy might.

But don’t panic just yet. If your organisation is found to have breached the Act, there’s a full defence as long as you can show that you had ‘adequate procedures’ in place to prevent bribery. So what does this mean?

• What counts as ‘adequate procedures’ varies. If yours is a large organisation or one that operates overseas, you’ll face a bigger risk of bribery than a small company or one that only operates within the UK. As such, your bribery prevention measures and due diligence need to be more thorough.
• Your commitment to preventing bribery needs to be demonstrated from the top, with senior leaders ensuring that everyone understands you don’t tolerate bribery. This is a serious responsibility – don’t just assume it goes without saying. You also need to make sure all staff work within your policies and procedures, so training is advisable.

So it’s acknowledged that the training required for a smaller or lower risk organisation is different from the training required for larger or international organisations. But it is required nonetheless.

The Bribery Act guidance published by the government is a hefty 45-page document. You might still want to read this at some point, but for now I’ve pulled out the key points relating to training (with my emphasis added).

• ‘Training provides the knowledge and skills needed to employ the organisation’s procedures and deal with any bribery related problems or issues that may arise.’
• ‘General training could be mandatory for new employees […] but it should also be tailored to the specific risks associated with specific posts.’
• ‘Training ought to achieve its objective of ensuring that those participating in it develop a firm understanding of what the relevant policies and procedures mean in practice for them.’

And this brings us to the crux of the matter. You’d be wise to invest in some form of anti-bribery training for your staff, and you’d be wise to make sure it’s the best investment possible. Whatever form of training you choose, we recommend:

• Focusing on the practical application of the Act. Keep it short and to the point. What situations should employees be aware of as potentially risky? What action should they take if they find themselves in such a situation? All the associated policies, procedures and clarifications can be stored and accessed elsewhere.
• Providing an element of role-based tailoring. All staff need a basic level of training, but some of your staff, for example those in procurement, will be higher risk where bribery is concerned. Opt for a training solution that acknowledges those differences, making it a better user experience and also more time-efficient for your business.
• Including both corporate and individual perspectives. To make the message hit home, you’ve got to go beyond talking about reputational damage. For example, illustrate how that can translate to a decline in business, which in turn can lead to cutbacks in salaries or even in staff. Make the Bribery Act matter to each individual.

There are plenty of off-the-shelf courses available (including our own customisable offering), and if you’re designing your own training, maybe some of our compliance tips will be useful?

Compliance training has a bad reputation for being little more than a box-ticking exercise. But here at Saffron we believe it’s absolutely possible to create effective, engaging training that achieves both competence and compliance. Read on for our top five tips for breaking the mould and delivering gold standard compliance training every time.

1. Keep it positive
Avoid the temptation to instruct your learners in what they must and must not do. Try to minimise the number of ‘horror stories’ about the dire consequences of breaking the law. Training that’s driven by fear, or by an organisation’s need to cover its back, is unlikely to really make a difference.

2. Make it relevant
When it comes to compliance, what you do is more important than what you know. So don’t focus on legislative detail; focus instead on what the law means in practice to each individual learner in their day to day work. This is a great step towards achieving enhanced awareness and competence as well as meeting regulatory requirements.

3. Keep it real
One way to achieve that relevance and engage your learners is to use scenarios: create recognisable, everyday situations and get learners to identify the issues and make recommendations. This clearly demonstrates to them what they need to know (and do) and why. It also means they’re more likely to apply this knowledge in the workplace.

4. Make it varied
If learners are engaged in and enjoy a course they’re more likely to learn from it. Use a variety of interactions and media to cater to different learning styles and keep them interested. For example, consider photo or video scenarios, handy downloadable tips, news reports or articles, real life case studies and easy to access dictionaries.

5. Keep it conversational
We’ve had user feedback confirming what we already believed: a plain English, conversational tone of voice contributes to keeping learners engaged and therefore to the effectiveness of the training. Something as simple as this is a change from the norm of compliance training and offers learners a breath of fresh air as well as delivering results.

Download:

Top ten tips for writing an effective, engaging compliance course

Click here or here to find out more about our approach to compliance training. We’ve also recently won an IT Training Award for a compliance training project!

A couple of days ago I read with interest Clive Shepherd’s latest blog post in which he refers to his recent experience on the other side of the fence, as a student rather than designer of compliance e-learning. He draws the conclusion that it’s hard – if not impossible – to create something that achieves both competence and compliance. This is a topic we’ve broached before on the Spicy Learning Blog and I admit my thoughts on this are perhaps half-formed (or, more accurately, ever evolving), but I’m not entirely sure I agree with Clive…

What’s interesting is that he goes so far as to say the material was not just interesting, but fascinating. This is not always the case with compliance training, and creating something which actually piques the learner’s interest and gets them engaged is a great first step towards really effective e-learning. The next step is to create something that doesn’t simply achieve compliance, but delivers improved performance and behavioural change.

I would argue that this is absolutely possible in compliance training. Let’s take data protection as an example: a ‘traditional’ approach might simply run through the eight principles of data protection, instructing the learner in what they must and must not do when handling personal data. There would probably also be some horror stories about the dire consequences of breaking the law (as Donald Clark says, ‘the driver is NOT learning or people development, it’s “fear”‘), and a knowledge test or assessment consisting of questions focused on the wording and definitions of each of the principles. This type of course is designed purely for compliance purpose: the organisation can prove they’ve trained their people as required and cover their back in case an individual does break the law having taken the course.

But this is by no means the only way to approach the design of compliance e-learning. A more effective data protection training course, which aims to achieve the competence or enhanced awareness that Clive found lacking at the end of his experience as well as meet regulatory requirements, would focus not on the legislative detail but on what the law means in practice to each individual learner in their day to day work. We recently produced a course that took this approach and certainly took big steps towards achieving those aims.

We did broadly structure the course around the eight data protection principles, but we didn’t begin each section with the legal jargon and then hammer the point home with threats of dismissal, fines or prosecution. Instead we used video to engage the learner and demonstrate relevance by using very recognisable everyday situations and asking the learner to identify what the issues might be. We also offered them a variety of resources including real life case studies presented as news reports and newspaper articles, a take away list of suggested dos and don’ts that they could refer to in future (rather than ‘must’ and ‘must not’ messages on every other screen) and a data protection dictionary to translate any necessary jargon into easily understandable terms. We also paid close attention to the end of course assessment to ensure that this approach was applied there as well – all the questions presented the learner with situations that they might reasonably encounter at work and asked them to identify whether there was something to be concerned about, why this was the case, what should have been done differently or what action they would recommend.

The result was a course that absolutely met the organisation’s compliance obligations, but which also engaged learners and gave them an increased level of awareness and competence. Having taken the course they may not all be able to recite the actual wording of each principle, but they have the appropriate knowledge to be able to identify risky situations or areas of concern and to take steps to avoid or remedy those situations. They also have a genuine awareness of the seriousness of the topic, having been introduced to relevant real life examples and case studies throughout the course.

Of course, there would be people who took the course and claimed the aims hadn’t been met. But the overwhelming feedback from users and experts alike is that we delivered something they didn’t expect from compliance training. My favourite comment was from the technical expert testing for accessibility purposes who reported that he actually found himself reading the content voluntarily and being interested and engaged – not often the case with mandatory compliance training!

I’m guessing there are some strong views on this out there and I’d love to hear them. What do you think? Do you agree with Clive that competence and compliance are more or less mutually exclusive, or do you think there are ways they can sit comfortably together in e-learning? Leave your comments below and hopefully we’ll get a snapshot of what the learning and development community really thinks about compliance training!

Criminals, fraud, terrorists, prison, fines, media frenzy and bankruptcy – exciting stuff! So why is the vast majority of compliance training as dry as Gandhi’s sandals?

Financial fraud and data protection cases have been all over the news in 2008, and 2009 is set to be a big year for legislative and regulatory bodies. Big corporates will be fighting to herd their workforce through the gate of hell that is compliance “e-learning”.  

I use the quotes because the sad truth of the matter is that learning has very little to do with the motivation behind compliance interventions and even less to do with the result. Many a blogger before me has lamented this fact; here are just a few choice quotes to illustrate the point:

“In most, you will literally lose the will to live…
This is all about attendance, not attainment – literally ticks in boxes.” – Donald Clark

“It has NOTHING to do with learning.” – Brent Schlenker

“It’s like immunising people with placebos.” – Donald Clark

When it comes to workplace training, it doesn’t get much more serious than legal and regulatory compliance. Yes, you want employees to be good at their jobs, to be motivated to continuously develop new skills and to manage their own learning. But surely, before all that, you want them not to land the company in a whole heap of trouble by leaving customers’ details on the train, letting slip the latest product info to their mates down the pub or not noticing that their fellow trader is swindling millions at the other end of the desk.

Yet the same companies who are so diligent about the quality of their e-learning when it comes to soft skills, performance management and systems training suddenly lose all ambition when it comes to compliance. So why do organisations find it so hard to see the correlation between compliance training and performance? Why is the highest ambition companies have for compliance training “you have to do it and you have to show that you’ve done it” (Sue Weeks)?

As Brent Schlenker points out, “if the goal of the training is to be compliant then you’re wasting your money doing anything more than just a simple converted PowerPoint with a test at the end.” If this attitude is the driving force behind delivering compliance training, the ROI is precisely nil. Why not get your money’s worth out of your training and actually try and prevent breaches of compliance at the same time as showing that you have done what’s required of you?

Or, at least, attempt to make the training – dare I say – fun. This is possible, I promise! Compliance e-learning offers a wealth of possibilities when it comes to making the training engaging for the learner, whether that’s going for a game-like delivery or making it as relevant and realistic as possible – you’ll know which your people will respond best to.

With 2009 looking like it’s going to be less than a barrel of laughs, let’s not add to the woes of the global workforce by sapping what little will to live they do have through mindless, pointless, painful compliance training.

Let’s dust ourselves off from the disappointments of previous efforts and keep trying to bridge that gap between compliance and performance. Or, at the very least, between compliance training and consciousness.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!