How to Enhance Compliance Tracking & Reporting with L&D Data

L&D data and learning analytics play an essential role in ensuring compliance and data privacy. From proving time spent on training to scaling up reports to meet regional regulations, compliance reporting can provide real-time insights while adhering to data governance best practices.

And while effective compliance tracking is necessary for maintaining legal standards and ensuring worker safety, the process can be complex and time-consuming—often involving managing vast amounts of L&D data.

But there’s good news. Learning analytics provides a solution, offering a streamlined and efficient approach to compliance training and reporting.

This blog post explores how L&D data can help answer core compliance questions, such as:

• Are we licensed to operate?
• Can we prove % time spent on training (% of payroll or time-unit)?
• Can we scale up reports to factor in different regional regulations?
• Can we trust the data we’re reporting on?
• Can we access live-time reports in the moment of need?
• Does L&D reporting follow data governance best-practices?

What does “compliance” mean in an L&D context?

First, let’s discuss the concept of compliance from a learning and development perspective. In this context, compliance refers to adherence to laws, regulations, and policies relevant to an organization’s operations.

Compliance is pivotal in ensuring organizations across various industries operate ethically, legally, and efficiently. Furthermore, it protects organizations from legal penalties and builds trust with customers, employees, and the public.

Compliance reporting looks to demonstrate workforce are trained to meet these requirements, and that sufficient organizational frameworks are in place to meet industry-specific requirements and regulations. L&D is often on the frontline of supporting both application and reporting.

What are the benefits of compliance tracking and reporting with learning analytics?

Learning analytics can help streamline and enhance compliance tracking in several ways, such as:

1. Real-time L&D monitoring: Learning analytics platforms can provide live updates on the progress of compliance training programs. This feature allows immediate intervention, ensuring all employees receive the necessary training.
2. Personalized learning paths: Identify individual learning needs and preferences to create custom learning paths that enhance the effectiveness of compliance training programs.
3. Predictive analytics: Predict future trends by analyzing past data. This process can help you anticipate potential compliance issues and proactively avoid them.
4. Evaluation of training effectiveness: See what’s working (and what’s not) so you can improve your training content and delivery.

Learning analytics can also improve the compliance reporting process, including:

1. Automated reporting: A learning analytics platform can automate the creation and delivery of compliance reports, saving significant time and resources.
2. Detailed insights: Get detailed insights into compliance training progress and effectiveness to identify areas of strength and areas that need improvement.
3. Evidence-based decision-making: Create L&D reports to make informed decisions about compliance training programs.
4. Regulatory compliance: Compliance reports can prove an organization’s commitment to legal and ethical standards while helping demonstrate regulatory compliance.

In some industries, compliance training means completing a required number of training hours. For instance, this example dashboard tracks training credits earned by individual learners* and the organization as a whole. *Not real names

L&D data tracking: Ensure licensing and training compliance

You can use L&D data to track and provide evidence of employees completing necessary licensing and mandatory training, helping ensure the organization’s licensing compliance.

At times, this mandatory compliance training is essential to meet legal requirements. While in other instances, it’s crucial for ensuring employees’ actions remain compliant with internal rules.

• Meeting Licensing Regulations. Compliance training requires employees to complete a specific number of certified training hours in certain job sectors. Tools like a learning analytics platform dashboard enable you to easily monitor the training credits earned by individual employees and the entire organization. This approach helps ensure everyone stays current and compliant with licensing regulations.
• Monitoring Completion and Impact. Organizations must know who has completed the required compliance training and who hasn’t. By using compliance reports, organizations can show regulators they have effective systems in place to track completion and assess the training’s impact on fostering compliant behaviors.

So, by using L&D data, organizations can meet compliance requirements and ensure employees are well-equipped to handle their roles responsibly.

Prove time spent on training is paying off

Unlike standalone compliance tracking software, a learning analytics platform can track the time employees spend on all organizational training, providing accurate data to prove the percentage of time allocated to training relative to payroll or other time units.

For example, AT&T wanted to enhance its ethics compliance training by introducing a high-fidelity simulation that was meant to be as effective as the previous training but more time-efficient. The company employed Watershed to assess the efficacy of both training methods and validate their high fidelity.

Surprisingly, the shorter-duration content proved more effective than the low-fidelity alternative, underscoring the advantages of microlearning. Consequently, AT&T achieved substantial savings of 670,562 production hours and 160,380 employee course hours through streamlined training programs.

When multiplied by the number of learners required to complete the training, the time saved translated into significant cost reductions in employee training.

Use L&D data to enhance compliance reporting

L&D reporting helps organizations align with diverse regulatory requirements, keep their data trustworthy, and follow data governance best practices.

Let’s dive into the key considerations and capabilities of L&D reporting—addressing concerns such as scaling up reports for different regional regulations, data reliability, real-time access, and adherence to data governance standards.

• Scale up reports to factor in different regional regulations. You can structure learning analytics to accommodate and report on training data specific to different regional compliance regulations, ensuring the organization’s training aligns with diverse regulatory requirements. For instance, the following example L&D report shows where different areas of an organization stand with their compliance and certifications.

• Trust the data you’re reporting on. Learning analytics can provide insights into the accuracy and reliability of the reported data, offering assurance regarding the information’s trustworthiness.
• Access live-time reports in the moment of need. L&D reporting systems can provide real-time access to reports, allowing immediate access to training data as required by the compliance department.
• Follow L&D data governance best practices. You can design L&D reporting systems to adhere to data governance best practices—ensuring the collection, management, and reporting of training data align with regulatory and best-practice standards.

Up Next: Optimize sales performance with L&D data

L&D data and analytics are pivotal in ensuring organizations’ compliance and privacy—from streamlining training and reporting and improving efficiency to enhancing training effectiveness and data-informed decision-making.

Join us for our next blog post as we discuss how the Sales team can benefit from using training data and learning analytics.