How do you stop employees rushing through compliance training?

Employees clicking through mandatory training as quickly as possible is a familiar frustration for businesses. But are organisations unintentionally encouraging the very behaviour they're trying to prevent?

In our previous blog, How do you make employees want to complete compliance training?, we explored one of the biggest challenges facing learning and development teams: motivating people to participate in training they haven't necessarily chosen to complete.

But there's another side to this conversation.

We regularly hear from businesses struggling to get employees to engage with mandatory training. People leave it until the last minute, rush through online courses, skip information where they can and focus almost entirely on getting their completion certificate.

And I understand it. I've been there.

I've worked in organisations where mandatory training was another task on an already enormous to-do list. I've completed courses covering subjects I was already familiar with, sat through information that had very little relevance to my role and found myself wondering how much longer I had left.

I've also worked on the other side, designing training programmes, supporting learners and understanding the pressure organisations face to demonstrate that everyone has completed their required training.

So I can see both sides.

But I think there's a bigger question here. Have we created a culture where completing training has become more important than what people actually learn from it?

Why do employees click through mandatory training without paying attention?

Before we assume employees are disengaged because they don't care about learning, it's worth looking at the environment in which mandatory training takes place.

For many employees, compliance training arrives as an instruction. An email appears telling them that a course has been assigned, followed by a deadline for completion. If they don't complete it, they'll receive a reminder. Eventually, their manager might receive a report showing that they're overdue.

None of this is particularly unusual. Organisations have legal, regulatory and operational responsibilities, and they need systems that help them manage those requirements.

But consider what the employee is being asked to prioritise.

They're not necessarily being told what they'll gain from the training, how it connects to their responsibilities or what they should be able to do differently afterwards.

They're being told when it needs to be finished.

And when the communication surrounding training is almost entirely about completion, it's understandable that employees begin to view it as an administrative task.

The organisation needs a completion. The employee needs to get it off their to-do list.

Both parties might achieve their immediate objective without either knowing whether any meaningful learning has taken place.

Are completion targets encouraging a tick-box approach to training?

Completion data is important. For organisations managing large teams, multiple locations or regulated activities, being able to demonstrate who has completed mandatory training is essential.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) make this considerably easier. They allow organisations to assign training, monitor progress, issue reminders, record assessment results and maintain evidence of completion.

These are valuable functions, particularly when training needs to be delivered consistently across a large workforce. But there's a difference between measuring whether training has happened and measuring whether it has worked.

A dashboard showing 100% completion tells us that everyone has reached the required point in the programme. Depending on how the course has been designed, it might also tell us that learners passed a knowledge assessment.

What it doesn't automatically tell us is whether employees understood the information, can apply it in their role or will make different decisions when faced with a relevant situation.

Yet completion rates are often the most visible measure of training success.

Managers are praised for getting their teams to 100%. Employees receive reminders until they've finished. Training departments produce reports demonstrating that everyone is up to date.

The system is working exactly as intended, at least from an administrative perspective.

But if completion is the main thing we measure, should we be surprised when completion becomes the main thing employees focus on?

This is particularly relevant to compliance training, where organisations need to maintain evidence that required training has been delivered. The challenge is ensuring that the need for evidence doesn't overshadow the purpose of the learning itself.

What happens when employees complete the same training every year?

Repetition can be incredibly valuable in learning. Revisiting information over time can strengthen memory, reinforce understanding and help people retain knowledge.

But repetition and simply repeating the same course aren't necessarily the same thing.

Think about an employee who has worked in their industry for 15 years. They've completed annual training on manual handling, fire safety, data protection or workplace conduct numerous times.

They understand the basic principles, have experience applying them and may even be responsible for supporting less experienced colleagues.

Then another annual refresher appears in their learning dashboard.

It contains the same introductory information, familiar examples and questions they've answered several times before.

Is it surprising if they rush through it?

This doesn't mean experienced employees no longer need training. Regulations change, working practices evolve, and even experienced people can develop poor habits or misunderstand important requirements.

But it does raise questions about how we approach refresher training.

Are we identifying what employees already know? Are we focusing on areas where knowledge needs updating or reinforcing? Are we challenging people to apply their understanding in different situations?

Or are we simply asking everyone to complete the same content again because another 12 months have passed?

There is an important distinction between reinforcing learning and repeating information.

One gives people an opportunity to strengthen their understanding. The other can become an exercise in demonstrating that they've seen the material before.

Does making compliance training shorter actually solve the problem?

Shorter training has become increasingly popular, particularly as organisations look for ways to reduce disruption and make learning easier to fit around work.

And there are good reasons for that.

A focused learning experience covering one specific topic can be easier to manage than a lengthy course attempting to cover everything at once. Employees may be able to complete it between other responsibilities, and the content can concentrate on a particular skill, risk or decision.

This is one of the reasons we use microlearning and short, focused activities within many of the programmes we design at Emblem.

But there's an important distinction between designing effective short learning and simply making a course shorter.

Removing information doesn't automatically improve understanding. Dividing a 60-minute presentation into six 10-minute modules doesn't necessarily make it more engaging, particularly if the learning experience remains exactly the same.

And if employees are already motivated to complete training as quickly as possible, telling them a course will only take five minutes might reinforce the idea that speed is the most important thing.

We've probably all seen training advertised as something you can complete in just a few minutes. From a business perspective, that's appealing. Less time away from work, lower disruption and potentially better completion rates. But from a learning perspective, we need to consider what somebody can realistically achieve in that time.

Are they being introduced to a concept? Refreshing existing knowledge? Practising a decision? Demonstrating understanding?

A five-minute activity can be valuable when it has a clear purpose. It becomes less useful when the objective is simply to get through as much information as possible in the shortest time.

Shorter training isn't automatically better training. It depends on what we're asking people to learn and how we're asking them to learn it.

Are we confusing interactivity with engagement?

As learning designers, we spend a lot of time encouraging organisations to move away from passive learning experiences.

And for good reason.

Reading through pages of information or watching a lengthy presentation doesn't necessarily require someone to think deeply about what they're learning.

Interactive learning can encourage participation, provide opportunities to practise and help learners connect information to real situations.

But there's a risk that we start measuring engagement by the number of interactions we've included. A course might contain videos, animations, clickable diagrams, drag-and-drop exercises and knowledge checks. On paper, it looks highly interactive. Yet a learner who is determined to reach the end as quickly as possible may approach every interaction as another obstacle.

They click through the animation, skip the optional information and complete the activity with minimal thought.

The interaction has happened, but has the learning?

This is why meaningful interaction matters more than the quantity of interaction.

A realistic scenario that asks someone to make a decision, consider the consequences and reflect on their response can offer something very different from clicking through a series of information panels.

But even the best-designed scenario relies on the learner being willing to engage with it.

Which brings us back to motivation. In our previous article, we explored the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and why someone completing mandatory training might have very different reasons for participating from someone who has chosen to develop a new skill.

Understanding those differences matters because we can't assume that simply making training more interactive will automatically change how people approach it.

Related reading: Link to Blog 1, “How do you make employees want to complete compliance training?”

What does learning theory tell us about rushing through training?

There are several learning principles that help explain why rushing through training can be problematic.

One is cognitive load, which considers the demands placed on our working memory while learning. If a course presents too much information at once, or includes unnecessary distractions, learners may struggle to process what's important.

Good learning design can reduce those unnecessary demands, organise information clearly and help learners focus on what they need to understand.

But cognitive load isn't the only consideration.

Retrieval practice is another important principle. Rather than simply presenting information repeatedly, retrieval practice asks learners to recall what they've learnt. This can help strengthen memory and reveal areas where understanding is incomplete.

For example, asking someone to make a decision about a workplace hazard without immediately showing them the answer requires more active thinking than simply asking them to read a list of safety precautions.

Spaced learning also has a role to play. Revisiting information over time can support longer-term retention, particularly when learners need to retrieve and apply what they've previously covered.

These principles are useful because they move us away from thinking about training as a one-off event.

However, they also highlight an uncomfortable reality.

We can design learning experiences that encourage deeper processing, retrieval and application, but if someone is focused entirely on finishing, they may still put as little effort into those activities as possible.

Learning theory helps us design better opportunities to learn. It doesn't guarantee that every learner will take advantage of them. And I think that's something we need to be realistic about.

What about toolbox talks and regular workplace safety training?

Toolbox talks are a particularly interesting example because they're often delivered regularly and focus on subjects employees may already be familiar with.

They're also an important part of communicating workplace safety information, particularly in industries such as construction, manufacturing, engineering and facilities management.

But the format and experience can vary enormously.

Some organisations use toolbox talks to encourage discussion, share experiences and reinforce safe working practices. Others may rely more heavily on written information, attendance records and short briefings.

From a learning design perspective, the interesting question is what employees are being asked to do during that experience. Are they simply receiving information, or are they being encouraged to think about how it applies to their work? Are they discussing situations they've encountered, considering what could go wrong and exploring what they would do differently? Or has the toolbox talk become another regular requirement that needs to be completed and recorded?

The same questions apply to online compliance courses, induction programmes and annual refresher training.

The format isn't necessarily the problem. It's what happens within that format, and how the learner approaches it, that matters.

This is one of the areas we've been exploring while developing our new Digital Toolbox Talks library. We're interested in how short, scenario-based digital learning can support existing workplace training and introduce opportunities for employees to participate in a different way.

But we're also conscious that simply moving a toolbox talk online doesn't automatically solve the engagement problem.

A PDF on a screen is still a PDF, and a digital completion record doesn't necessarily tell us anything more about what somebody has learnt than a signature on an attendance sheet.

The technology gives us opportunities to do things differently. What matters is how we use them.

Are organisations unintentionally rewarding the wrong behaviour?

This is perhaps the most interesting part of the problem. Think about what happens when an employee completes their mandatory training quickly. They've met the deadline, their manager no longer needs to chase them and their completion appears on the organisation's reporting dashboard.

From everyone's perspective, the task is finished.

Now consider an employee who takes longer because they're carefully working through the scenarios, reviewing feedback or revisiting information they didn't understand. Both employees might ultimately receive exactly the same completion record.

In fact, depending on how training is monitored, the employee who finished first might appear to be the more efficient one.

We're not suggesting organisations should start rewarding people for spending longer in online courses. Time spent learning is no more reliable an indicator of understanding than completion alone. But it does demonstrate how easily we can focus on the wrong measures.

If we want employees to think carefully, apply knowledge and develop confidence, we need to consider whether the experience and expectations surrounding training actually encourage those behaviours. And that includes what happens outside the course.

If managers only discuss training when it's overdue, employees may understandably see it as a deadline-driven task. If training is never mentioned again after completion, it can feel disconnected from everyday work.

The learning experience might be well designed, but the wider workplace culture is still telling people that the most important thing is to get it finished.

Is rushing through compliance training really an employee problem?

I don't think it's quite that simple. Of course, employees have responsibilities. Workplace safety, conduct, data protection and other compliance subjects matter, and people need to take their training seriously. But organisations also have a responsibility to make that learning relevant, accessible and worthwhile.

If we're asking people to repeatedly complete training that doesn't reflect their role, provides little opportunity to apply their knowledge and is communicated almost entirely through deadlines and reminders, we shouldn't be surprised when engagement is low.

And if the only evidence we're interested in is whether someone has completed the course, we need to be careful about what conclusions we're drawing from that data.

A completed course tells us that a requirement has been met. It doesn't automatically tell us that someone is more competent, confident or likely to make the right decision at work.

That's not an argument against completion tracking. It's an argument for recognising its limitations. As learning designers, we can improve the experience by applying evidence-informed approaches, introducing meaningful activities and making training more relevant to the learner. But we also need to recognise that engagement is influenced by much more than the course itself.

Organisational culture, management expectations, previous training experiences, available time and individual motivation all play a part. Perhaps the first step towards stopping people rushing through compliance training is understanding why they've learnt to approach it that way in the first place.

So, how do you stop employees rushing through compliance training?

There probably isn't one simple answer, and adding more compulsory interactions or making courses harder to skip isn't necessarily going to solve the problem.

We need to look at the entire experience, from how training is introduced and communicated to what happens after somebody completes it.

We need to consider whether we're reinforcing existing knowledge or simply repeating information, whether the learning is relevant to the employee's role and whether our assessments genuinely tell us anything about their understanding.

And perhaps most importantly, we need to think about what we're encouraging employees to achieve.

If the message is always "get your training completed", that's exactly what people will focus on.

But if we want learning that influences workplace decisions and behaviour, we need to start treating completion as one part of the process rather than the end goal.

In our next article, we'll explore another part of this challenge: Can gamification make compliance training more engaging?

We'll look at whether competition, challenges, scores and rewards can give employees a different reason to participate, and why adding a game isn't necessarily the same as designing an effective learning experience.

Want to move beyond tick-box compliance training?

At Emblem Training Solutions, we design bespoke digital learning, scenario-based training and CPD-accredited courses that focus on helping people understand and apply what they've learnt.

We also support organisations with reviewing existing training, identifying opportunities for improvement and developing more engaging learning experiences.

Get in touch to discuss your compliance training challenges and how we can help.