Every person will need to attend live compliance training at least once in their career—where someone from the compliance and ethics team gets up and presents to the room.
And the way that compliance professional delivers the training is what makes the difference between a room full of engaged folks who "get it" and those who spend the entire time on their phone.
So, if you're that compliance professional, how do you make sure you do it the right way so you get the right result?
That's what this post is all about! Below, we've got four tips to ensure your live training is world class.
1. Set clear expectations before the session.
Yep, the saying "unmet expectations are premeditated resentments" is applicable for live training sessions, too.
So help your audience know what to expect before the session itself. Send off a super-short note the day before that covers the topic, the duration, and why it matters.
It doesn't need to be complicated or long. Something as simple as, "During tomorrow's twenty-minute training session, you'll learn how to review a travel and expense report so that you spot red flags for fraud and bribery, and avoid signing your name to something with problems in it."
Setting expectations like this signals that:
1) The training has a defined goal
2) The training will teach them something practical
3) There are personal stakes for getting it right
This will get your attendees in the right headspace for what's in store—and it will instantly improve your training by forcing you to have clarity on these issues, too!
2. Less is more. Always.
You may have the urge to cover EV.RY.THA.ANG in your training session that you possibly need to cover. I mean, you finally have them all in the same room at the same time, this may be your only chance!!
Don't.
If you try to cover everything, two things will happen: (1) your audience won't remember anything, and (2) it probably will be your last chance to have them all in the room at the same time.
What you should do instead: introduce only three new things at most. Why? That's about all someone is going to be able to remember. And if you give them more than that, they'll assume that you don't care if they can remember it—and they'll tune out.
Need to introduce more than three things? Schedule another session. At that point, you can cover what you did at the first session, then introduce the new material—it's a great way to reinforce what you've already taught while building on it with new ideas.
And bonus: by limiting what you're introducing during your session, you're also limiting the session's length. Which means that if you need to ask for a follow-up session, folks will be way more likely to say yes.
3. Give a takeaway handout.
Now that you've used your attendees' time efficiently and respectfully, just send them on their way!
Wait, no!
How many times have you had a full, interactive, 20-minute conversation with someone, walked away, and have literally forgotten 75% of what that person said? Yeah, same.
As you can imagine, it happens with compliance training, too. So give your folks a handout at the end of the session—if you were doing the travel-and-expense-report training from our example above, you'd give them something like this:
With a handout like this, you're reinforcing the material that you covered during the session. You also framed the risks around their job duties and made it super easy to understand. Something like this can be posted in a cubicle or by a computer—easily referenced, easily done.
And waaaaay better than simply hoping that folks would remember what you told them.
See how easy our materials are to customize with these free hotline posters!
4. Follow up after a week.
Now that you've given an amazing, world-class live training session, remember one of the most important steps: the follow-through.
This is super simple, so don't overthink it—follow up with your attendees with a quick email about a week after your session. And include a digital version of your takeaway handout! By doing this, you're accomplishing two things: (1) bringing the topic back to mind and (2) offering your help should anyone have any questions.
So not only is it reinforcing the material you covered, but it's relationship building—you're reminding them that you're an available resource and they don't have to go it alone.
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You already have your amazing topic to train your teams. Now you've got four sure-fire tips to make your training world class. Go forth and encourage compliance!