Online compliance training shouldn’t just be a check-box part of your annual HR to-do list. Done right, compliance training can help employees navigate tricky situations, solve issues, and save your business from costly problems. Done wrong, it can sometimes do more harm than good. In example, the National Institutes of Health found sexual harassment prevention training had a negative effect on the attitudes of some males — meaning they were more likely to harass after viewing harassment prevention training.

We’ve all seen what traditional compliance training online looks like:

  • Typically it’s once-a-year training
  • At times, it includes monotone reading and animated PowerPoint presentations
  • Cringy skits and role-playing scenes
  • Straightforward quizzes (when real life is never simple)
  • Lengthy all-at-once courses that don’t save employee’s progress if they need to come back to i

Employees roll their eyes when they receive the email invite in their inbox. “Here we go again,” they say. They open up the training, and soon enough, they’re on Instagram and looking up whenever the “Next” button on the training becomes available. Maybe they’ll be forced to answer a difficult quiz question every once in a while, but did they actually learn better workplace behaviors? Or did they just click around until they found the right answer?

Your employees (and your business) deserve better. Fortunately, better exists.

Ethena goes above-and-beyond check-box training by creating engaging content and delivering it with research-backed methods (that actually work). Let’s show you the difference. But before we do that, let’s talk about why most online compliance training utterly fails.

Why Most Online Compliance Training Fails

Most online compliance training fails. That’s not hyperbole — that’s a fact. Gallup data shows that just 17% of participants rate their online program as excellent, and only 11% strongly agree that their coworkers apply lessons learned in the training to their everyday work.

If employees aren’t putting their new knowledge into practice, what’s the point of having the training? Yes, it fulfills your legal obligation, but don’t you want better?

Here’s why most compliance training fails:

  • Lifeless Content: Most compliance training content is drier than a week-old piece of toast. You have to pay your employees to watch it (literally) because it’s so outright boring and unengaging.
  • Shoddy Delivery: Watching a bland 30-minute course every 365 days won’t impact change. It’s about as effective as cramming right before your big college exams. Sure, you might pass the tests — but did you remember anything?
  • Irrelevant and Unrelatable: Training that isn’t personalized comes off foreign. Employees question, “When would I ever be in that situation? How will that ever apply to me?”

Poor training doesn’t just fail to solve issues — it causes new ones. Research shows that sub-par training and adoption of practices can lead employees to “violate the formal compliance rules in a widespread fashion.”

“We know that traditional training just isn’t effective at behavior change,” says Roxanne Petraeus, Ethena co-founder. “There are some studies that show that it’s a pretty big backlash with increased unconscious bias after training versus before.”

How Ethena’s Compliance Training Online Is Different

Identifying the problem with today’s compliance training wasn’t difficult, nor was it too tricky to come up with a solution. We built Ethena to deliver engaging content that employees would actually enjoy. All while doing more than just checking all the boxes.

Here’s how Ethena does things differently:

Downright Engaging Content

Why can’t online compliance training content be binge-worthy? If people can watch hours of couples arguing on The Bachelor or Judge Judy settling small-claims cases, why can’t they enjoy learning about systemic bias or anti-bribery laws?

We think they can, and they should. That’s the approach we take to create compelling content. We use a mix of media formats to engage our participants:

  • Timely real-world examples
  • Vibrant comics and graphic novels
  • Original videos
  • Podcast-like audio lessons

And instead of just learning how to engage in the breakroom, employees learn practical modern-day skills like Zoom etiquette and Slack culture.

We produce relevant, memorable, and pun-filled content that’s always cringe-free. That’s a guarantee.

Super-Duper Easy Admin Tools

Onboarding employees to an online compliance training tool and ensuring your company is in-tune with compliance requirements shouldn’t be difficult. And with Ethena, it doesn’t have to be. We built our compliance training online as a tool with all the features you need to complete trainings without the headaches:

  • Automation: We’ll handle assignments, reminders, and scheduling flexibility to ensure everyone gets the training they need based on their management level, location, and more.
  • Reporting: Our at-a-glance dashboard gives you all the metrics you need to know, from completions to even employee sentiment.
  • Time-Saving Tools: Use single sign-on (SSO) magic link logins and progress saving every 30 seconds, to help your employees get trained and back to work.
  • HRIS Integrations: Onboard your employees in no time with human resources information system (HRIS) integrations and CSV uploads.

Delivery Done Right

Company culture doesn’t change with a 60-minute how-to every year. It needs to be a regular part of your employees’ education and practice. We provide your business with the course material it needs to stay compliant, but we go above and beyond to deliver bite-sized ongoing content that’s timely and practical.

We send employees pings and five-minute lessons to keep them engaged with the content — nobody wants to sit around for an hour-long annual workshop. Employees can learn and engage with a relevant real-world example before going back to work. Later that day, they might witness something from their lesson, and they’re much more equipped to know how to respond now that it was effectively delivered to be top of mind.

Results That Speak for Themselves

We could go on and on about how Ethena’s compliance training platform is different (we nerd out over those sorts of things), but we’ll let the numbers do the talking. Here’s how learners engage with our content:

  • 93% positive feedback ratings (employees like our stuff)
  • Trainings completed 2x faster than the industry standard (employees aren’t putting our training off for later)
  • 68% of 10,000+ learners feel very or extremely confident intervening on behalf of a colleague experiencing harassment after completing our Harassment Prevention Training (up from 45% before the course)

See How Online Compliance Training Should Look

Stop checking the box and start creating lasting change by switching to Ethena’s compliance training online. We promise — once you (and your employees) engage with our platform, there’s no going back to traditional compliance training.

See the difference for yourself. Schedule time with a member of our team to get a hands-on tour of our compliance training platform and courses. Not ready for a demo? Request a full-functioning sample to your inbox instead.