Where to Get Compliance Training Courses for Your Team
When a small business realizes they need formal compliance training (usually after reaching 15-20 employees, or to meet an upcoming state requirement), the immediate question is: "Where do we actually get the training content?"
The good news is that you absolutely do not need to hire an instructional designer or build 60-minute interactive courses from scratch.
There is a massive industry dedicated to selling "off-the-shelf" compliance courses. The key is knowing how to buy them, and more importantly, how to retain control over delivering them.
Option 1: Buy Off-the-Shelf Interactive Courses
The most efficient route for small businesses is to purchase compliance courses from dedicated vendors.
When you buy a course this way, you usually buy it in a standard format (often referred to as SCORM). This is basically a .zip file containing the entire interactive course.
What is SCORM?
Think of SCORM as the "MP3" format for training courses. Just like any MP3 player can play any MP3 file, any modern compliance platform (like Ethica) can launch, track, and score any SCORM file.
Here are a few reputable places to source core compliance content (like Harassment Prevention, Data Privacy, and OSHA Workplace Safety):
- Compliance Training Group: Specializes in HR and workplace compliance. They offer their entire library as exportable training packages.
- Compliance Training Online: Offers thousands of specific courses across multiple industries.
- OpenSesame: A massive marketplace where you can browse and license individual courses or bundles from various publishers.
How it works: You purchase the course, the vendor gives you a .zip file. You own (or license) that file.
Option 2: Build Your Own
If your training needs are highly specific to your internal processes, you can build it yourself without needing a degree in instructional design.
If you already have training materials in PowerPoint, the fastest way to digitize them is using an "Authoring Tool".
- iSpring Suite: This tool lives directly inside Microsoft PowerPoint as a plugin. You take your existing slides, and click a button to export them as an interactive course package.
- Articulate Rise 360: A web-based tool that lets you build beautiful, mobile-responsive courses quickly, using simple building blocks.
The Trap to Avoid: Buying the "All-in-One" System
Many content vendors will try to sell you the courses and the LMS (Learning Management System) required to host them. This is often a mistake for small businesses.
Enterprise LMS systems are notoriously bloated. They are built for massive corporations with complex learning paths, user directories, and social learning feeds. Your employees will have to create accounts, remember passwords, and navigate a complicated dashboard just to take a 45-minute harassment course.
Furthermore, if you license the content through the vendor's proprietary LMS, you are locked into their ecosystem. If you ever want to change platforms, you lose all your completion data.
The Modern Alternative: Separate Content from Delivery
The smartest operation strategy is to decouple Content from Delivery.
- Source the Content: Buy the interactive course file from a vendor like Compliance Training Group.
- Control the Delivery: Upload that file into a dedicated, streamlined delivery platform like Ethica.
By using Ethica to deliver your purchased training content, you get:
- No Employee Logins: Ethica delivers the training directly to your employees' inboxes via a secure magic link. No passwords to forget.
- Full Data Control: All your compliance records, completion dates, and certificates live in a system you own, completely independent from your content provider.
- Automated Reminders: When a new hire is added, Ethica's Smart Rules can automatically send them the interactive course you uploaded, and follow up recursively next year.
Ready to see how easy it is to deliver your training files without a bulky LMS? Start your free 30-day Ethica trial today.