Three Reasons Why Compliance Training Fails
In this article, I will analyse the top three reasons why RTO compliance training often fails. Despite being in the training industry, many programs, including formal ones, fail to positively impact RTO performance.
- Lack of Alignment with RTO’s Needs
The success of a training program is driven by its alignment with business measures. If a training program is not connected to these measures, its effectiveness cannot be gauged. Too often, training is implemented for reasons like following trends, meeting regulatory requirements, or addressing perceived needs that may not be linked to RTO metrics.
To align training with business objectives, a consistent four-level concept should be used:
- Reaction: How we want students to perceive the program and its outcomes.
- Learning: The new skills and knowledge we want students to acquire.
- Application: How we want students to use the new skills.
- Impact: The RTO performance metrics we aim to improve.
Without the business connection at Level 4, achieving tangible results is challenging. One major RTO encountered this issue when reviewing its Trainers’ Professional Development Plan. Although several PD sessions were conducted to enhance trainers’ skills and knowledge, they were not tied to any RTO performance metrics, such as the number of non-compliances in clause 1.8 or rectifications identified in validations. Consequently, the sessions did not improve assessment practices as participants could not apply the procedural skills learned.
- Failure to Recognise Non-Training Solutions
Implementing the wrong solution yields little or no payoff. Training is often misperceived as a universal remedy for various performance problems, when the root cause may lie elsewhere.
A community college’s recent evaluation illustrated this problem. The college’s training program aimed to prepare career counsellors to advise potential students about training products. Despite the effort, a significant number of students enrolled in inappropriate courses, leading to minimal change in outcomes.
An impact study revealed that the issue stemmed from the enrolment procedure, which accepted students before career advisers could interview them. Unless the enrolment procedure changed to allow for these interviews beforehand, the results remained unchanged.
Attempting to address job performance issues with training alone is ineffective when the actual problems are related to systems, job design, or motivation. To overcome this, staff training must focus on performance analysis rather than traditional training needs assessments—a significant shift in performance improvement.
Up-front analysis should evolve from needs assessment, which targets skills and knowledge deficiencies, to a process that starts with business needs and progresses to learning needs.
- Lack of Specific Direction and Focus
Training should be a focused process that aligns stakeholders on desired results. Training objectives should be developed at higher Kirkpatrick levels than traditional learning objectives, corresponding with six measures that offer a balanced approach to evaluating training success. Most training programs should have objectives at multiple levels, ideally including Levels 3 and 4.
RTO internal training is often decided without consulting all stakeholders. What are the performance needs of the CEO, Marketing Manager, Training Manager, and Quality and Compliance Manager? Properly developed objectives, created in consultation with relevant stakeholders, provide essential direction and focus.
Training designers and developers must focus on application and effect, not just learning. Facilitators need detailed objectives to prepare individuals for the ultimate outcomes of the learning experience: job performance change.
Participants need the direction provided by Level 3 and 4 objectives to understand how the training program’s outcomes will benefit the RTO.
Not all programs require detailed up-front analysis, but it is crucial when training is expected to impact RTO performance significantly.
