How do you make employees want to complete compliance training?

Oct 15

7 min read

We can make compliance training more engaging, interactive and relevant. But what happens when someone simply doesn't want to do it in the first place?

It's a question we've been thinking about a lot recently at Emblem, particularly while preparing for our webinar with Workprove, Ticked the Box, Taught Nothing, which explores why compliance training so often fails to change behaviour.

Because we hear the same frustrations from businesses time and time again. Employees don't want to complete their mandatory training, managers struggle to get people to engage, and even when everyone has completed the course, there's often uncertainty about how much they've actually learnt.

And we understand why this happens. Most employees don't wake up in the morning looking forward to completing their annual compliance training. They've got jobs to do, deadlines to meet and customers to look after. Training can feel like another task that's been added to an already busy working day, even when the subject is genuinely important.

So how do we change that?

The problem with training people HAVE to complete

As learning designers, we spend a lot of time thinking about how people learn. We use learning theories to help us structure content, design activities that encourage people to think, introduce realistic scenarios and provide opportunities to practise applying knowledge. We consider accessibility, cognitive load, feedback, motivation and how to make learning relevant to someone's actual role.

All of these things matter enormously, but there's something we can't ignore.

If somebody has been told they HAVE to complete a course, there's a good chance they're opening it with one goal: get to the end as quickly as possible.

And it doesn't necessarily matter how beautifully designed that course is.

You might have created an excellent learning experience, but the learner hasn't chosen to be there. They're completing it because their manager has told them to, because their organisation needs a record of completion or because it's a requirement of their role. That doesn't mean they're unwilling to learn, but their immediate motivation might have very little to do with learning.

And that's quite a difficult problem to solve through learning design alone.

Why making compliance training interactive isn't always enough

For years, the learning and development industry has encouraged organisations to move away from passive training, and rightly so. We've all experienced the dreaded PowerPoint presentation that seems to go on forever, or the online course where you click through endless screens of information before answering a handful of questions at the end.

Making training more interactive can be a significant improvement. Instead of simply reading about a workplace hazard, learners might explore a realistic scenario, identify what has gone wrong and decide what should happen next. Instead of memorising a policy, they might practise responding to a situation involving a colleague or customer.

These activities can encourage deeper thinking and help people connect information to their own experiences. But interactivity and engagement aren't necessarily the same thing.

We can add buttons, videos, drag-and-drop activities, scenarios and knowledge checks. We can make the course look fantastic. Yet if the learner is still focused entirely on getting their completion certificate, they may simply see those interactions as more obstacles between them and the finish line.

Adding more things to click doesn't automatically make somebody more interested in learning. We need to think about what motivates them to participate in the first place.

What actually motivates employees to complete training?

Motivation is an enormous topic in learning theory, but one useful distinction is between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

Intrinsic motivation comes from within. Someone participates because they're interested, curious or genuinely want to develop their knowledge and skills. Extrinsic motivation comes from an external reason to participate, such as gaining a qualification, receiving recognition, meeting a requirement or earning a reward.

Neither is automatically good or bad.

Think about somebody completing a Level 3 teaching qualification because they want to become a trainer. They have a clear personal reason to learn and can see how the knowledge and skills will benefit them.

Now think about somebody who has been told to complete their annual manual handling refresher. They may already know the subject, might have completed similar training several times before and might not see what they're going to gain from doing it again.

The challenge isn't necessarily that the training is badly designed. It's that the motivation to participate is completely different, and perhaps that's something we need to consider more carefully when designing mandatory learning.

What if we gave people another reason to take part?

This is where we've started exploring something slightly different at Emblem.

What if completing mandatory training wasn't the only reason someone wanted to participate? What if there was a score to beat, a colleague to compete against, a chance to represent their company on a leaderboard or even the opportunity to win a prize?

We're not suggesting that offering prizes will suddenly make everyone passionate about workplace compliance. But it might change how someone approaches the experience.

Instead of opening a course thinking, "How quickly can I get through this?", they might be thinking, "I wonder if I can beat Steve's score?"

And that gives us something interesting to work with. Because once somebody has a reason to participate, we have an opportunity to use good learning design to make that participation worthwhile.

The challenge becomes more than simply getting someone to open the course. It's about what we ask them to think about, practise and demonstrate while they're there.

Can competition actually improve learning?

Competition is one of the many approaches used within gamified learning. It can introduce challenge, encourage participation and give people a reason to return to an activity. But it's important to distinguish between encouraging someone to participate and helping them learn something.

A leaderboard might encourage somebody to complete a quiz, but it doesn't automatically mean they'll remember the answers or apply that knowledge in the workplace. Equally, a timer might make an activity exciting, but it could also encourage people to rush through questions without properly considering their answers.

That's why competition needs to be designed carefully.

For example, a short knowledge challenge might encourage learners to retrieve information they've just covered. Immediate feedback can help them understand why an answer was right or wrong, while a realistic scenario might ask them to make a decision based on something they'd actually encounter at work.

The game gives them a reason to participate, while the learning design gives that participation a purpose.

Of course, competition won't motivate everybody. Some people enjoy leaderboards and challenges, while others prefer to work independently without the pressure of being

compared with colleagues. Good design needs to recognise that too, ensuring the learning remains accessible and valuable regardless of whether somebody chooses to participate in the competitive element.

What does this mean for toolbox talks and other short compliance training?

Toolbox talks are a particularly interesting example of this challenge. They're designed to communicate important information about workplace safety, risks and responsibilities, often in a relatively short amount of time.

But we've heard from businesses that getting people to engage with regular toolbox talks can be difficult, and it's not hard to understand why. When someone is completing similar training regularly, particularly on familiar subjects, the experience can start to feel repetitive. The conversation becomes something to get through before returning to work.

The attendance sheet gets signed, the completion is recorded and everyone moves on. But how much has actually stuck?

We don't believe digital learning should replace the important conversations that happen between supervisors, managers and their teams. However, we do think there's an opportunity to use digital learning to support those conversations and introduce a different level of participation.

Short, focused learning experiences can give people opportunities to make decisions, explore realistic situations and check their understanding. And perhaps a little friendly competition could give them another reason to get involved.

It's something we've been exploring as we develop our new Digital Toolbox Talks library, combining scenario-based learning with interactive knowledge challenges, games and opportunities for individuals and organisations to compete.

Not because we think every toolbox talk needs to become a game, but because we're interested in whether we can change the way people approach training they would otherwise simply want to get finished.

The goal is still behaviour change

There's one important point we shouldn't lose sight of. Getting people to participate is only the beginning.

A learner might enjoy a course, achieve a fantastic score and finish at the top of a leaderboard. But if nothing changes in the way they work afterwards, we haven't necessarily achieved what the training was designed to do.

That's why we need to think beyond engagement. Does the learner understand why the information matters? Can they recognise a problem when they encounter it? Do they know what action to take? Have they had an opportunity to practise making the right decision? And importantly, does their workplace support them in applying what they've learnt?

Compliance training shouldn't exist simply to produce completion records. It should help people make better decisions and work more safely and confidently.

Competition might help us get their attention. Good learning design helps us make use of it. And the workplace itself is where we find out whether the learning has made a difference.

So, how do we make people WANT to complete compliance training?

We probably can't make everyone genuinely excited about mandatory training, and we shouldn't pretend that adding a few games or prizes will solve every engagement problem.

But we can acknowledge that being required to learn something isn't the same as being motivated to learn it.

We can make training more relevant, remove unnecessary barriers, introduce meaningful activities and give people opportunities to apply their knowledge. We can also explore different ways to encourage participation, including competition, recognition and rewards.

At Emblem, we're particularly interested in what happens when we combine those approaches rather than treating them as separate solutions.

Because perhaps the answer isn't simply to make mandatory training more interactive.

Perhaps we need to give people a reason to want to take part in the first place.

Want to make your compliance training more engaging?

At Emblem Training Solutions, we design bespoke digital learning, scenario-based training and CPD-accredited courses that go beyond simply presenting information and recording completions.

We're also developing our new Digital Toolbox Talks library, bringing together short, practical learning experiences with interactive challenges and a little friendly competition.