Decisions made when creating a compliance elearning program are just as important as the content itself. Here are the most common mistakes businesses make creating UK compliance elearning programs and how to avoid them.
Overloading Modules With Text
Forced feeding of long policy documents. Walls of text can only be scrolled through, skimmed or even better forgotten. Break down the information into manageable chunks. Then test the learner with scenario-based questions that force them to make a decision based on the information they have just learned. Active recall is far better at ensuring that information is retained than passive reading of a large amount of text.
Skipping Proper Audit Trails
Ensure you have proper audit trails for health and safety training and compliance e-learning courses. Employers have a responsibility under health and safety training obligations under UK law to prove that staff have received necessary training and have a good understanding of it. Therefore, ensure your compliance e-learning platform has the proper functionality to record completions, scores and dates, and that you are able to export this information from the platform quickly should you need to supply it to an inspector or auditor.
Refreshing Courses Too Rarely
A single induction course is rarely sufficient and most pieces of training require to be refreshed on a periodic basis. The amount of time for which people remember information is underestimated by most managers and it is better to set up a course to automatically be sent out for refresher purposes on a regular basis rather than rely on individuals to enrol for a revisit to a previous course.
Using Generic Off-the-Shelf Content
Don’t fall into the trap of using “off-the-shelf” compliance elearning programs. These will probably include some reference to the legal aspects of compliance, but then they will refer to a company’s policies and procedures, job roles and functions that won’t exist in your organisation. So, your staff will either find the content irrelevant or will be confused by the content. Either customise the content of your off-the-shelf elearning programs or use a provider who is able to customise the content for you. If you are looking for Compliance Elearning, see https://www.adempi.co.uk/compliance-training/elearning-courses.
Ignoring Accessibility Requirements
Make sure that your e-learning is accessible to all learners and complies with UK regulations. This includes ensuring that your e-learning is compatible with tools that learners use to read web pages i.e. screen readers, that learners can use only a keyboard to navigate through your e-learning, and that all audio is provided with captions. The accessibility standard for most organisations in the UK is currently WCAG 2.1 AA. Ensure that you check for accessibility issues before you launch your e-learning, not after a complaint has been raised.
Ignoring Drop-Off Data
Do your learners stop mid-way through your elearning modules? You should pull out your completion rates and find out where your learners are abandoning ship. It may require a few tweaks to your elearning but it is far better than leaving them lost half way through a module.
It is often the smallest changes to most common compliance errors that can lead to huge differences in the effectiveness of training courses to change behaviour in staff across your business.