5 Tips for Virtual Compliance Training

The Corona crisis has accelerated the trend of companies making video conferencing and chat tools such as Zoom, Teams, Skype or Slack available to all employees (read our tips on working with virtual tools in compliance teams). As well as one-to-one interactions, most of these providers can be used for larger video conferences and therefore to undertake training. Just make sure the platform supports at least the number of participants that would normally attend a face-to-face training session.

Here are a few tips for delivering training via video conference (although most of the points apply to training more generally):

• Use screensharing to present PowerPoint slides or other media.
• Make the training content as relevant as possible to your audience by using real-life examples that the group, for example sales or purchasing staff, might face
• Use real-life examples from the company or from the same industry where possible
• Avoid too much text on slides
• Work with images and graphics
• Keep it as short as possible, without leaving out the essentials

We’ve all taken part in video conferences that seem never-ending. It can be tiring staring at a screen for long periods of time. Therefore, avoid long sessions of lecture-style training. Here are some tips to make compliance training more interactive, especially in a virtual format:

• Limit the length. The vast majority of participants switch off after 1.5 hours at the most. If necessary, divide the training up into several shorter session.
• As a trainer, try not to speak for more than 30 minutes at a time. Instead, keep asking the audience open questions:
  • How would you act in this situation?
  • Has anyone experienced something similar?
  • Is there anything else that springs to mind when discussing this topic?
• Use in-app or other tools such as Mentimeter to polls your participants. The results can provide interesting talking points.
• Replace flipcharts and Post-its with digital tools. For example, you can use PowerPoint and share your screen to collect suggestions and ideas from the audience (more tips on interactive video conferencing sessions).

Short, interactive training sessions help participants to retain the content, increasing the effectiveness of training.

You could save yourself the effort of live training and simply roll out compliance training as an eLearning course. Experience has shown however that engagement and information retention is lower when this is the sole delivery method for training.

This is why the concept of “blended learning” is becoming ever more popular. Traditional face-to-face training (or in our case: virtual training) is supplemented, but not replaced, by digital learning tools.

In practice, blended learning for compliance training can take many forms:

• After the live training session, an online questionnaire can be sent to the participants to check their level of knowledge.
• In the run-up to the live training session, participants can complete eLearning modules. The live session can then be used for a deeper dive and Q&A.
• Using your compliance risk assessment, determine which topics need live training sessions and those for which an eLearning module is sufficient.
• Use microlearning activities such as infographics, mini quizzes and cheat sheets to reinforce messages on an ongoing basis.

Clearly eLearning may be the only viable option in certain scenarios, for example if you need to train tens of thousands of employees on the implications of a change in law on a specific date.

In terms of implementing eLearning, many companies have Learning Management Systems (LMS) in place, usually managed by the human resources department. If you are simply looking to monitor the success of live training, surveys and tests can be easily created using tools such as Microsoft Forms, Google Forms or SurveyMonkey.

Being able to record live sessions is an advantage that virtual training has over the classroom setting. Most video conferencing tools offer this, and it has many benefits:

• Recordings can be made available on the intranet. The link can be sent to participants enabling them to review the content as well as to those who were unable to attend the session.
• Create a training library online. Existing and new employees can access training at any time and as part of any induction programme.
• Create “train the trainer” recordings. This allows you to roll out consistent training across the organisation.
• If necessary, you can simply record the presentation part of the session and stop recording for the interactive part.

Like all aspects of the compliance programme, you should be monitoring the success of your training. Do not wait for a compliance incident to indicate whether your training was successful or not.

The most common method of checking whether compliance training is effective is for participants to do a short test following the training session (see point 3). Doing it in this way means you can check whether the content conveyed has really been understood. Some tools even provide further detailed insights, for example how long it takes participants to answer certain questions.

By conducting a short survey, you can ask employees for their opinion on your compliance training (for example, was the content easy to understand? Is there a topic where more information is required?). Ideally after every virtual training session you would gather immediate feedback from the participants.