FastTrack compliance training saves organisations significant time with training delivery because it tests employees’ knowledge with a pre-course assessment. If they pass, they can complete a short course, instead of an in-depth one, which focuses on reinforcing knowledge and highlighting any updates in a particular topic.
Learning and Development (L&D) teams can deliver engaging training that’s both cost-effective and maximises knowledge retention, while compliance teams can ensure employee training is completed on time.
FastTrack compliance training from Skillcast allows learners to complete a pre-course assessment to test their knowledge on key regulatory topics like UK GDPR, cybersecurity or bribery prevention. If the learner passes the test, they complete a short version of the in-depth course, which highlights any legislation updates and reinforces existing knowledge. If the learner fails, they will need to complete the full in-depth course.
It’s the ideal route for experienced employees who have completed an in-depth course in the past and may already know the majority of the course content.
Note: Employees need to be at the organisation for at least a year and/or completed the in-depth course in the past within the learning management system (LMS) to be eligible for FastTrack training.
UK businesses spent £53bn on employee training in 2024 – but over the last 13 years, investment in training has dropped by nearly a quarter. Budget cuts can lead to insufficient training delivery and risk compliance if you fail to develop critical skills in your organisation such as cybersecurity awareness.
But it is challenging for employers to deliver training for a number of reasons: resource constraints, employee resistance and difficulty measuring the impact and return on investment (ROI).
FastTrack training enables L&D teams to ensure course content is engaging for all learners and mitigates key challenges:
"Having no training records is not an option for regulated businesses but L&D teams are increasingly facing challenges with learner engagement and knowledge retention. It doesn’t make sense to allocate the same 40-minute training course year-on-year if employees already have an understanding of a topic and it makes for a poor learning experience.
FastTrack training eliminates these challenges because it rewards existing knowledge and reduces repetition for staff who may have been doing the same contenteach year, especially for regulatory topics that don’t change much. It helps organisations step away from the one-size-fits-all training courses delivered each year."
- Danny Ambrose, Senior Compliance Transformation Specialist at Skillcast
FastTrack is available as a standalone feature and to organisations using the Skillcast Enhanced or Skillcast Premium plans.
If you’ve enabled FastTrack training, learners who have been at the organisation for over a year will get an option when they click on a course to do a pre-assessment. This process is fully automated if your HR software is integrated with the learning management system (LMS). They can, of course, opt to do the full course, especially if they’re not confident with the topic.
If a learner chooses to take the assessment, the system will provide information on how FastTrack works and what happens if they pass or fail.
Next they’ll be redirected to a series of questions to test their existing knowledge. You can choose the number of questions, which is often based on the complexity and length of the topic, and it’s recommended to include randomised questions for a fair assessment.
It takes just a few minutes to complete the assessment.
Note: You can also turn on text selection lock, which prevents learners from selecting or copying the questions, and set a time limit on the test.
Once a learner has completed the test, they’ll receive a score to find out if they’ve passed or failed. Organisations can set the pass rate – it’s advised to keep it relatively high.
If learners fail the test, they will be directed to the full course, which they’ll need to complete to demonstrate their understanding of the topic.
The short version of the course highlights key areas of a topic to reinforce understanding and summarise any changes the learners need to be aware of. It’s a shorter path to compliance training completion – and the process is also fully automated, saving time and improving efficiency for compliance teams, while ensuring learner engagement for L&D teams.
Once a learner has completed either the short or full course, they can submit feedback to help L&D teams measure its effectiveness and engagement. The data can be used to make key decisions, for example, if the FastTrack training is well received, it can be rolled out across all courses.
Insurance intermediary Evolin Broking streamlined its training programme by adding innovative training techniques such as FastTrack. This meant the course content was more relevant to the learner and it improved completion rates, helping the organisation speed up compliance readiness.
How long a FastTrack course takes to complete depends on the learner and the complexity of the course.
On average, it can take just 10 minutes to complete a training course using FastTrack, for a full 30-minute course, meaning you could save 20 minutes per learner.
FastTrack compliance offers many benefits: cuts costs, saves hundreds of learning hours each year, while ensuring compliance and audit readiness. You can get an idea of how many hours you could save with our handy calculator.
Measuring the effectiveness and ROI of training is a big challenge for employers because it’s not always easy to quantify learner engagement or time saved. With FastTrack training, it’s more straightforward because you can work out the actual time spent on training versus the time spent if learners were to complete the entire course. Compliance teams can also generate reports using the Skillcast platform and track key metrics such as completion rates, time saved and training efficiency.
FastTrack also offers a better ROI because it reduces the time and money spent on achieving compliance. Training delivery can almost be cut in half in some cases if the learner completes a short version of the course. Our enhanced learning calculator predicts organisations could save over £9,600 per year if half of learners passed with FastTrack, based on 10 training courses per year, delivered to 100 employees with an average salary of just over £40,000.
Use the calculator to find out how much you could save with FastTrack training.
FastTrack training cuts the time-to-value because learners can reach compliance readiness faster. By demonstrating their knowledge with the pre-course test, and following it up with a short course, Compliance teams can mark learners off as fully trained. This can also reduce any compliance risks or incomplete training.
Here are three ways FastTrack helps to reduce time-to-value:
FastTrack is scalable because organisations can roll it out for courses that focus on topics that are a ‘lower-risk’ to companies to start with. It’s also best to apply it to subjects you know employees are confident in, which reporting can help you to identify.
"Use FastTrack training for the topics that are quite heavy and the content may be dry. Data protection is a good example because it's a very detailed regulation and there aren’t usually a lot of changes to it. It’s best to avoid using it for topics like anti-money laundering to begin with as these are fundamentally important to financial services companies."
- Danny Ambrose, Senior Compliance Transformation Specialist at Skillcast
The purpose of FastTrack is to save organisations time with training delivery, to improve engagement by reducing repetition and to reach compliance readiness faster. FastTrack is applied to in-depth courses and focuses on a single topic, with two learning paths: a short course or full course.
On the other hand, diagnostic assignments are separate tests to identify the strengths and weaknesses of an individual employee or team's regulatory awareness across a range of topics. The platform creates competence heat maps using the results, so you can deliver targeted, personalised learning. For example, if a learner fails a question on password security, a learning path can adapt to address that.
A diagnostic assessment is a second phase of FastTrack. This is another part of the Enhanced Learning Plan that can be adopted iteratively.
Asset management firm Jupiter wanted to test its employees' existing knowledge on regulatory topics to identify any employees or teams who needed extra training. This meant they could deliver more targeted training and reduce repeating course content if employees were already competent.
The firm partnered with Skillcast to implement FastTrack compliance training, so they could enrol employees into a pre-assessment. FastTrack training, along with diagnostic tools, helped them improve training frequency, while reducing repetition of the course content.
“Having the tools to analyse our staff training to identify trends, breaches and policy violations and map this to training subjects has been invaluable. This process is in its initial stages, and we look forward to continuing this journey with Skillcast to save time and improve efficiency in our compliance training programme.”
- Anne Campbell, Senior Compliance Office at Jupiter
Read the full case study.
FastTrack training, available with a Skillcast Enhanced Plan or Premium Plan, ensures organisations can reach compliance readiness by shortening training delivery for learners who have existing knowledge. They could also save thousands of pounds because of the time saved.
As well as FastTrack training, you can improve engagement with bite-sized learning courses, such as short interactive videos, or nudge learning to reinforce messaging. You can also opt for diagnostic assessments, which offer more targeted training following a pre-course assessment on a range of topics.
Skillcast delivers over 400 compliance training courses to help you meet regulatory requirements and reduce risk, including in-depth and refresher courses.
Find out more about FastTrack Training.
Compliance training ensures your employees are up to speed with the latest laws and regulations in your industry, as well as internal policies. Mandatory compliance training includes health and safety, fire safety, data protection, and anti-money laundering and anti-bribery in regulated sectors like financial services. Whether an employee undertakes mandatory training, and to what level, depends on their job role and responsibilities.
A FastTrack learning course in education is typically an accelerated training course in any subject that helps learners to progress faster. However, FastTrack compliance training at Skillcast is an adaptive approach, allowing organisations to improve compliance via relevant, targeted training. Learners take a pre-course assessment to determine their knowledge level – if they pass, they can complete a short course instead of the full one.
Our Enhanced Plan is designed for businesses more flexibility than the on-size-fits all approach to compliance training. We have developed innovative features to personalise and simplify training to improve engagement. FastTrack Training is just one of the innovative features available. Additional features include:
If you would like to access leading insights and compliance tips, you can browse our free resources by topic to find guides, modules, compliance bites and more.
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