The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the way we do business and how employees work. As of 2023, about 12.7% of full-time employees work remotely and 28.2% have adopted a hybrid work model. While remote work can unlock access to talent from all over the world and promote a better work-life balance, it also can come with its own set of challenges. On the other hand, some employees may be bogged down with excess information from everywhere.

Not all of them find it easy to focus when working at home. Those accustomed to traditional, instructor-led training programs often find it difficult to complete their virtual coursework. But remote work is here to stay, and so are the challenges associated with it. Regardless of how detailed your compliance training is, chances are, your employees will likely “check out” if it doesn’t maintain their attention from start to end.

If your remote employees don’t understand the compliance regulations and protocols surrounding your industry, they may not know how to handle a situation of non-compliance. Whether it’s a matter of employee misconduct or a major regulatory breach, any lapses on your employees’ part could result in reputational, financial and legal disasters.

Keeping this in mind, how can you ensure your remote workers understand the importance of compliance and the repercussions associated with non-compliance? The answer: Create compliance training that is engaging, memorable and interactive.

How to Fully Engage Remote Employees in Compliance Training

Here’s how you can get your remote workers to actively engage with compliance training:

Customize the content.

The compliance training model that works for a traditional workplace may not perform as well with your remote employees. Your remote employees have an entirely different work approach and varying work schedules.

To help them master their training, it’s critical to customize and organize your content in a logical way. Factor in the challenges that come with remote training and find a way to make your content highly engaging in a world full of distractions. Divide your training program into modules and set small milestones for your employees to achieve.

Make sure the lessons in each milestone are bite-sized and easy to consume. To make the overall program more effective, infuse it with practical exercises, include a good dose of visuals and craft interactive quizzes to help employees apply what they’ve learn.

Make it mobile-friendly.

Your remote employees don’t just use their PCs to get work done. They use a range of internet-connected devices including tablets and smartphones. This is why your training must be accessible across a varied range of devices. 2021 data suggests that the average person spends more than 5-6 hours on their phone each day. By optimizing training for mobile phones and other devices, your remote employees can have the freedom to learn from anywhere and in their own time.

Create bite-sized content.

Let’s face it: Consuming heavy compliance literature is not exactly a fun activity.

Studies reveal that humans today have an attention span of just 8.25 seconds — roughly the same as a goldfish’s. In an era, where we’re constantly bombarded by information from our social media pages, how can you ensure your remote employees cut through the clutter and make the most out of their compliance training?

The answer lies in crafting micro-learning content. Break down huge chunks of your training into small, bite-sized pieces of content that are 3-5 minutes long. Make these bite-sized pieces more interactive by including engaging videos, assessments and quizzes. Micro-learning can be applied to all aspects of compliance training including your code of conduct, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), discrimination, sexual harassment awareness training, business ethics, data privacy and more.

Deploy technology effectively.

With so many distractions dominating our tech-savvy world, using the right technology can grasp and maintain your employees’ attention from the very beginning. Include multimedia elements to get your remote employees to engage on a personal level. Make sure your compliance training software includes elements like audio narrations, ultra-engaging videos, quizzes, games and images to boost participation and help employees retain what they learn.

Use real-life examples and case studies.

A great way to make training more engaging (and relevant!) is to infuse it with several real-life examples and case studies. Extract scenarios of non-compliance from the news. Share ethical dilemmas that may have happened in your organization before. Present case studies that can take your employees through the process of identifying and responding to compliance hiccups.

Gamify it.

The importance of compliance training cannot be stressed enough. But if your training doesn’t keep employees fully engaged, they’re likely to walk out during the process.

Your compliance training doesn’t have to be boring, or worse, seem overwhelming. With gamification, you can (quite literally) make the training all fun and games. You can gamify the learning experience and include elements such as leaderboards, badges, points and other gaming mechanics.

Turning your training into a fun and competitive game will not only keep your employees’ interest but also help them retain what they learn!

Provide self-paced learning.

A great way to give your remote workers more flexibility would be to make training self-paced. You can give an overall training completion deadline and allow them to choose when to journey through the coursework based on their schedule. Remember, not all your remote workers work during the same hours. Self-paced learning can allow employees to learn individually regardless of where they are in the world.

Moving Forward

Compliance is strongly interlinked with the way you run your businesses and your employees (remote or not) play a massive role in it. Any lapses on their part can lead to severe legal, reputational and financial damages.

The goal of making your remote compliance training engaging is to ensure that your employees retain what they learn. By keeping employees actively engaged in the training from start to end, your organization can ensure those employees stay up to date with industry regulations and protocols.