by Lauren Barnett
Time in front of learners is a valuable commodity. Everyone throughout your organization is busy with his or her designated responsibilities, and the demands on a learner’s time makes scheduling training time challenging. If the learners are field-based, the opportunities for face-to-face time are limited and everyone is scrambling for their share. So compliance trainers need to make the most of live training time in order for learners to walk away with an understanding of how the policies, rules and regulations affect their jobs day-in and day-out.
Effective and targeted compliance eLearning is one solution. Deploying eLearning before the live session gives trainers the ability to focus their live training time on the application of policies, and any changes in the working environment that might affect the exact interpretation of the rules. It also allows the trainers more time to delve into learners’ questions about how to handle the situations they face.
Don’t Forget the WIIFM
When learners come to a live session with a baseline knowledge, trainers can utilize role-playing scenarios or interactive games to make the foundational knowledge presented in the eLearning more meaningful. This approach sharpens the WIIFM (What’s in It for Me) in the learner’s mind. When learners understand how the laws and regulations actually affect their daily activities, the information “sticks” even more and the potential for behavior change is stronger.
The Landscape Might Change
While laws, regulations and policies may not change often, the environment in which learners operate is fluid. Using eLearning courses for foundational training, before the live session, allows trainers to spend that face-to-face time discussing any changes in the company business or the industry. For example, over time, an off-label use of a product may emerge, or a company may enter into a foreign market, creating new risks and/or laws that have to be addressed through training. By deploying eLearning to cover any new laws or policy basics, trainers can use their live time to discuss the more specific details of how those changes are played out in the field.
Leave Time for the Gray Areas
Inevitably, the application of compliance policies and regulations is sometimes left open to interpretation. The nature of those policies can leave those in the field mired in confusion and lost as to how to apply related policies. When you train the foundational knowledge through eLearning, face-to-face training time can be used as an opportunity to answer those questions and educate the learners about how to conduct themselves in a compliant manner. That type of feedback and dialogue represents a major step toward reducing risk and strengthening your compliance culture, as staff learn how to apply the principles, even when there isn’t a ready-made answer in the policy.
Make it Stick
Face-to-face time with learners is a valuable and precious commodity, and as a trainer, you need to seek methods for making that time as rewarding as possible. Deploying a baseline of eLearning courses, such as those found in the PharmaCertify Compliance Foundations™ curriculum, frees the trainer to spend that time detailing how the laws, regulations, and policies affect the learners’ daily activities. When learners understand compliance is not a set of draconian rules, but rather integral facets of what they do daily, the information is more likely to stick with learners and drive more ethical and compliant behavior.
Lauren Barnett is a Compliance Training Content Specialist for the PharmaCertify™ division of NXLevel Solutions. When she is not identifying subjects for the company’s Compliance Foundations™ suite of off-the-shelf eLearning modules, or working with clients to create custom training content, she can be found gleefully volunteering for her daughter’s high school band and theater programs.
