Stories inspire everyone. You might be surprised to know, though, that tales are stored in a different part of our brains to facts, making them easier to access and more vivid for learners.
In the second part of LEO Learning’s series of compliance training podcasts, two of LEO Learning’s experts share their ideas and knowledge about why storytelling has an important role to play for companies carrying out compliance training and how it can be used to engage and upskill learners in innovative, relatable ways.
Learning shouldn’t be a grind
Rather than worrying about your learners seeing your mandatory learning as a chore, our podcast will give you valuable insights into overcoming passive training and turning your programmes into immersive experiences, brought to life by realistic scenarios which your employees will remember when they face important decisions during their day-to-day professional lives.
The podcast features Imogen Casebourne, LEO Learning’s Director of Learning and People, and Geoff Bloom, who has worked on blended leadership initiatives with the likes of PwC, Volvo, British Airways and BP in his role as Principal Consultant for LEO Learning.
In a lively mix of observations and case studies based on their successes with some of the world’s leading organisations, our experts describe how to give your training the all-important authenticity which engages audiences and broadens their awareness of the range of perspectives and responsibilities which contribute to strong compliance across a company.
Storytelling, as they have discovered, is a powerful tool for communicating key messages to learners. It also gives people the chance to think critically about different scenarios within a safe environment. When it’s done well, storytelling can be a catalyst for behavioural and cultural change.
Sparking curiosity among learners
Beginning with ways to strike rapport, gather stories and carry out research with learners, the podcast explores how you can make key points stick in the memories of employees, and how you can give them the support they might need once they have identified a risky situation in their work.
The ability to spot danger requires an appreciation of the latest compliance knowledge – LEO Learning’s previous research has mentioned Dr Hermann Ebbinghaus’s famous “forgetting curve”, which theorises that knowledge can easily be lost without sufficient support and practice over time.
In fact, all your good work in providing effective compliance learning could be wasted without a strategy which reinforces that material. The podcast discusses how to create memorable new campaigns and give people the spark to notice when things have changed and go back to a training programme to refresh their knowledge.
With a storytelling approach to training, professionals are more likely to naturally recall the learning they need to apply in different scenarios, rather than needing to refer back to a learning portal.
Imogen and Geoff reflect on how small mistakes in compliance can have serious consequences, and talk about some of the imaginative approaches LEO Learning’s clients have chosen to take when creating a holistic vision of health and safety, including longer training videos and multi-perspective dramas.
Compliance training you can believe in
Compliance training needs to be believable. One organisation, as Imogen recalls, struggled to lower its accident rate because its staff felt a disconnecteded towith to the leaders who carried out their training programmes.
By involving learners’ peers in compliance learning, LEO Learning helped to drive a cultural shift within the organisation, as the podcast explains. In another example from the airline industry, a set of relevant, contextualised ‘real’ stories also paid dividends in a programme that LEO Learning worked on.
Finally, the podcast ties the conversation together by picking three things that you should always try to do when delivering compliance learning, and offers some tips on embedding a mindset of safety and compliance across your organisation.