“Welcome to this e-learning module on Information Security. Over the next forty minutes, you will learn about what is cybersecurity, the importance of cybersecurity…………………..”.

Sounds familiar…well, of course, it’s our mandatory online compliance training on information security.  

Since it is a mandatory training the organization will want all the employees to complete it. And you notice the same trend “ low completion rates”, “ pushing learners to somehow complete the module”  and well the saga goes on…….

The issue is not that your learners don’t want to learn but its just that they don’t want to learn the same program (most compliance training are to be completed each year),  the same way and they are looking for something more engaging and personalised.

So how do you transform your “mandatory” and “seemingly” boring online training into something wonderful……. it’s through the magic wand of “gamification of e-learning”. I use the word magic wand because a magic wand can fulfill any wish just like gamification if done right is a powerful engagement tool but unlike a magic wand, it requires a lot of practice and experience to drive gamification and effectively implement it.

However even before we start with gamification of compliance training, let us understand the essential characteristics of any compliance training:

  • Compliance training deals with policy, governance and legal matters and helps the employees to understand the subtleties of these.
  • Most of the compliance training fall into the category of “mandatory training” as the organizations are required to comply with the regulatory issues.
  • Compliance training helps the employees understand the ethical and compliance issues and tell them what is “wrong” and “right” under the given circumstances.
  • Compliance training also acts as a firewall against the ignorance or lack of understanding of employees about the compliance issues resulting in operational, financial as well as reputation loss the organization.

Keeping the above factors in consideration, I am sharing with you four effective tips to gamify your online compliance training courses.

1.Do include rewards and penalty and make the learners aware of the “consequences”

While gamification definitely includes rewards and penalty but in case of gamification of compliance training, it becomes imperative. As mentioned, in the earlier part of my post, compliance training empowers the employees to understand the difference between right and wrong and hence use of rewards and penalty becomes an integral part of the compliance training gamification. Rewards drive positive compliance and governance and penalties discourage the employees from deviating from the regulatory and compliance guidelines.

A  compliance training should not only focus on ‘what to do and what not to do’  instead the module should show the learners the consequences of breaking the compliance policies. With the use of game elements, the organization can punish the learner by reducing the earned scores or points.
This will reinforce the learning and the chances of making the mistake again are very less as the user will be able to recollect the consequences of not following the mandated policy.    

2.Involve your learners with an engaging theme

How many of you remember the story of the race between the  Rabbit and Tortoise?
I am sure that it has been many years since you had heard the story for the first time. But still, we remember and recollect the story very well and this is what I call as the power of a good story.
People love listening to interesting stories which can grab their attention and hence my tip here is to use the storytelling approach with gamification to your compliance training programs.

Let us see the scenarios where storytelling approach can work well.

For example, let us consider a compliance training topic on ‘Insider trading’ for a leading investment bank.
The theme can be a corporate snake or ladder where the hero who is a star desk trader climbs up the corporate ladder every time he takes a right compliance decision but goes down when he does not comply with the insider trading guidelines. Including such small stories can hook the learners’ attention to the module, and helps the learners to relate to their real life and understand the importance of the rules and regulations in the most practical and logical manner.

3.Make it real

While using gamification for compliance training,  I suggest you bring real-world scenarios to train the learners effectively. When you can successfully blend your compliance training with real-world scenarios, the results can be outstanding.

For example, in a Fire and safety compliance module, the developer can gamify the contents with a scenario-based approach by including a scene of a fire break out and show what happens when the safety policies are not followed by the employees. Give the learners the chance of using the fire extinguishers inside the game, the users proper and correct actions can be rewarded here and a wrong approach or action will lead to the injury of his co-workers and subsequently points will be reduced.

The learners are thus able to understand the consequences of it in real terms, which cannot be shown through a traditional classroom training program.


4.Give clear instructions and feedback

When you are gamifying your compliance training modules, I recommend you to include instructions or a virtual guide to help the learners progress through the gameplay.
For example, if a particular user action is not correct, the learner should be immediately alerted and guided by proper feedbacks. Proper feedbacks helps in the reinforcement of learning.

So these are my four tips which I feel can make the gamification of your compliance training highly meaningful and engaging. Wish to know more about how to gamify your compliance training, feel free to reach out to us.