If you administer training programs in the learning and development (L&D) space, you’ve probably encountered this type of feedback before:

“I’m new to the firm — with so many mandatory courses, on top of my role training, it feels overwhelming.”

“I do lots of courses across the year, but at times I’m sure I’ve seen it before — things get repeated, and it feels like a waste of time.”

“I’ve been with the firm for years. I’ve done a lot of mandatory training. Do I need to do it all, every year?”

“I know mandatory training is important, but so are my frontline duties. I just wish it took up less of my time.”

Mandatory training can be a bit of a catch-22: It’s necessary to meet an organization’s regulatory requirements, yet employees have less and less time to complete it. So, what’s the solution? By focusing on learning objectives, genres and solutions, you can help reduce seat time, eliminate redundancies and combat learner fatigue.

Clearly Define Your Learning Objectives

When planning your training programs, it’s useful to take a step back to view your learning program as a whole. Start by clarifying your learning objectives. That may sound obvious, but it’s remarkable how many organizations skip this crucial step. Accurate learning objectives help you focus your efforts to deliver the right learning content to the right audience. Without clear objectives, learning waste can become much more common, resulting in redundant learning and overly long seat times. Your objectives will also provide you with a valuable benchmark against which you can test the effectiveness of your learning efforts.

When defining the learning objectives, it’s important to get input from all your key stakeholders. Before creating any content, these stakeholders should define exactly what they need learners to know at the end of a course and what behaviors they need to adopt.

Identify the Right Learning Genre

Learning genres are useful classifications that help you define the type of information you wish to deliver. This can be invaluable when managing training across an entire organization. Grouping related lessons and programs into easily classifiable categories provides an easy framework for determining the best learning solution. As we’ll discuss later, specific learning solutions often pair better with some learning genres than with others.

There are three main learning genres relevant to mandatory learning programs:

• Strategic learning: Focused on values.
• Technical learning: Focused on application.
• Tactical learning: Focused on responding to issues and events.

Using Learning Genres to Determine the Right Learning Solution

Genre #1 Strategic Learning

Strategic learning is best suited to behavioral change at an organizational level.

This genre focuses on values and is designed to communicate broad conduct themes and messages to a diverse, global audience. Strategic learning aligns with learning objectives that seek to answer big questions like, “Who are we and how do we work?”. This type of learning often takes the form of high-profile flagship modules with strong cultural and brand engagement, such as ethics modules and awareness-level financial crime modules.

Typically, such modules will attract the highest budgets within your program, as well as the scrutiny of senior management. Ideally, they’ll also have built-in longevity so they can be used over and over for several years.

Strategic Learning Solutions

Evoking an emotional response is key to embedding values and driving cultural change. Strategic learning is therefore well-suited to rich media solutions, such as animated and filmed scenarios that evoke emotion and bring stories to life. Applied learning solutions work particularly well here. This means leading with the story and using everyday experiences as a canvas for learning. There are many innovative ways of approaching this beyond the basic scenario format.

Examples include:

• What if?/What next?: The learner observes an event or actor and predicts the outcome of a choice being made.
• Mentor or Coach: The learner plays the role of an advisor, channeling a character or action towards the right outcome.
• Seeker/Truth finder: The learner guides an actor or interviewee to explore the issue and reveal the essential inputs, values and actions.

Genre #2 Technical Learning

Technical learning aligns with objectives that address specific knowledge and skills gaps and drives behavioral change at an employee level. The content is likely to be role-specific, jurisdiction-specific and competency-specific (i.e., will depend on the experience and knowledge of the learner).

Storytelling can be useful here too, but the selected scenarios must be role-specific and more technical in nature to effectively address the learning objective.

Technical Learning Solutions

Technical learning can easily become redundant. Since knowledge and skill levels vary significantly between individuals, it can become frustrating when employees are forced to sit through training that they’ve already mastered. One great way to avoid this is using test-outs. Provide a pre-test at the beginning of your training that allows learners who pass it to skip out of that particular lesson. This will not only reduce seat time but also help fight learner burnout by avoiding unnecessary training.  

Since technical learning is designed to deliver specific messages at an employee level, the best learning methods are those that adapt to a learner’s profile or in-module performance, such as: 

• Role stranding: The content filters or is enhanced to provide a learning path that specifically matches the learner’s profile (e.g., role, jurisdiction, etc.). 
• Elective Branching: Where the learner takes control and can direct their own learning path. 
• Performance branching: Where the path reflects the learner’s performance within the module by enhancing or skipping content depending on their competence and decision-making. 

Genre #3 Tactical Learning 

Tactical learning is used to drive behavioral change in response to specific internal or external issues and events. This type of learning aligns with objectives identified in audit or compliance reports, changes in procedures, new regulations and legislation or to address the learning curve by reinforcing key learning messages. The size of the audience will vary depending on the nature of the issue or event.   

Tactical Learning Solutions

Tactical learning calls for rapid, just-in-time learning that utilizes flexible and agile assets, such as microlearning, job aids, campaigns and facilitated classroom sessions. Microlearning helps reduce seat time by dividing content into short, easy-to-digest units that learners engage with when it’s most convenient for them. Job aids fill a similar function by allowing employees to reference learning materials on an as-needed basis, rather them taking up their critical time with a full course. 

Refocus Your Mandatory Training 

Take a fresh look at your mandatory learning program. Does it hit the learning sweet spot? If not, think again about your learning objectives and check that you’ve chosen the right learning genres and learning solutions to help you get your message across. 

By reducing seat time, eliminating redundancies, and combating learner fatigue, organizations can refocus their mandatory training programs to better meet the needs of both the organization and its employees.