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The word ‘compliance’ conjures up mixed emotions in the workplace. Some companies fight to thrive in highly regulated industries, whilst others pro-actively seek to maintain high levels of compliance to give them a competitive edge. Despite its various guises, it’s an essential component in all businesses and getting the administrative process right is key.

Research from Towards Maturity, a not for profit organisation promoting learning innovation, shows organisations want greater support from L&D to help with critical business issues, such as compliance, so they are better equipped at responding to change. And with pressure from external regulators and changes in legislation, having the right process streams and systems in place will save you time, effort and worry.

How can you use a LMS to ensure your learners are using the right set of behaviors and support the business with critical data so it can flourish?

1: Focus on competent compliance

The crucial factor in a successful compliance programme is to focus on competence, not on box-ticking.  Competent compliance means focusing on behaviours, and that people are doing the right thing – every time.

If you want to focus on competence, use a blend.  Document and approve offline activities and observations on your LMS so everything is in one central location.

2: Automate renewals

Many regulators insist on recurrent compliance training; it’s also important to keep the subject and recommended actions fresh in the minds of colleagues.  But whether it is annual or otherwise, managing the schedule of requirements for everyone within the organisation can be challenging. Different learners  complete at different times and courses have differing validity periods and refresher requirements.

Free yourself from time-consuming spreadsheets. Look for an LMS that will automate the process of reassignments and that will indicate recurring requirements.

3: Generate actionable reports

Another common factor in effective compliance programmes is the ability to quickly and easily ascertain the regulatory ‘health’ of the organisation and to take action.

Many businesses find it difficult to know who has completed, and critically, who still needs to complete. This may be because record-keeping is still manual, using a spreadsheet, for example, or because their online tracking only provides information on activity or completions, not a list of people who haven’t yet completed.

Don’t be left in the dark. Ensure your systems can give you real-time reports on who has and hasn’t completed. 

4: Involve managers

Make sure you include line managers in your communication plan when launching your programme. It’s important that they know their role and also ‘what’s in it for them’, and how it will benefit the organisation overall.

Aim for self-service reporting for line managers.  You can’t do it all from your department, so equip the local managers with the reports they need to encourage uptake. 

5: Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Once your programme launches, your LMS should be producing post-course survey results, completion statistics, quiz scores, and more.  Analyse this data and use the results to reinforce the positive messages to senior leaders, including return on investment calculations.

Continued senior management support is crucial to your fledgling e-learning initiative. It’s your responsibility to keep senior leaders informed so that they continue to lend the top level support your initiative requires.

If issues arise – and some may – make sure you respond quickly. Don’t let negative word-of-mouth kill your programme.  Make changes to content, if necessary and befriend IT to help overcome unexpected technical glitches.

Communicate before, during and after, and use the systems you have (LMS, Intranet, e-mail) to help you.