In a world of lawsuits and litigation, it is more important than ever to provide employees with accurate, consistent and timely information about policies, guidelines and regulations. Recent cases of harassment and discrimination put a magnifying glass on organizational culture and practices. Having strong policies that outline acceptable behavior is a vital way to cultivate positive and safe work environments. However, it’s also important to enforce, hold people accountable for and ensure accurate application of those policies. Through well-designed and -delivered training, you can help make sure that employees adhere to policy, which results in better business outcomes.

Policy training is typically met with dread by participants, because it is often poorly designed. Guess what? It doesn’t have to be! You can design an engaging and effective policy training program to drive positive outcomes through hard work, attention to detail avoiding common pitfalls. Here are four mistakes to avoid when designing policy training.

1. Lecture

The approach to avoid when training on rules and regulations is to read them to participants in a lecture. Your words will be greeted by eyerolls and sighs of boredom. Just because the material is serious doesn’t mean the class has to be all work and no play. Incorporate fun by adding interactive quiz questions. Facilitators can conduct intermittent knowledge checks to break up the monotony and elicit healthy competition between participants. With some platforms, participants can use their smartphones to answer questions. Add video clips of subject matter experts (SMEs) offering key takeaways to ensure a consistent experience for all learners, even if you take the training on the road across offices or facilities.

2. Pre-work

Sending out policies for participants to review prior to a training session or providing pre-work can be a waste of time – not for all training, but in this case. If people aren’t searching for and reading policies independently, they aren’t going to take time to read them thoroughly before class, and you could turn people off from the start. Pre-work is not going to help them achieve understanding. First, determine if the issue is a learning problem. Is it your best use of time and energy to build training on policy? If so, the learning goal should be to help learners understand the information in the policy by spotting issues and applying the policy consistently.

3. Training without Validation

Do not include materials or content in your training that haven’t been validated by both SMEs and users. Depending on your organization, SMEs could be HR business partners, legal and compliance personnel, or legal committees and advisors. Users are typically supervisors who commonly deal with certain issues around enforcing policies, leadership groups at different levels, and other employees who are directly benefitting from the learning. Ensure that all materials are aligned with the needs of the employees in the training. Involve key leaders who deal with common challenges. Use an agile approach to design by conducting a needs assessment, interviewing SMEs and users, and continuously creating and going back to your resources to validate, validate, validate!

4. Not Using Scenarios

Include realistic scenarios in your company’s context throughout the training. Ensure that what you have developed specifically pertains to SMEs and users. How does the scenario really play out in their workspace? What under-the-surface barriers do participants experience when enforcing the policies? What grievances do individuals experience in their departments or units? Select the policies that people need to adhere to or violate the most, and highlight them in the training through complex scenarios. When participants understand how to issue-spot and solve problems appropriately, they are more likely to apply the policy correctly on the job.

Designing training around policies and regulations is not an easy task. However, it can be fun and beneficial for learners, and it can make a positive impact in the organization.