Gamify Your Security Training To Boost Employee Engagement 

Employee Engagement : With the ever-present threat of cyberattacks regularly making the news, security awareness training is more important than ever before. In fact, ensuring your company avoids data breaches, protects against potentially harmful viruses, and doesn’t open the door for hackers is fast becoming a core component of any employee’s professional development.

However, no one said that security awareness training would be particularly fun, and while regular updates and educational sessions are crucial, maintaining employee engagement is a big challenge. Additionally, since around 88% of data breaches are due to human error, ensuring employees are engaged can mean the difference between an effective firewall and a leaky defense!

Having said that, there are plenty of ways to increase engagement to drive home those important cybersecurity lessons—and gamifying your security awareness training is the perfect antidote to any uninspiring PowerPoint slides! Here, we look at how you can do that and why a gamified syllabus helps everyone work towards a common goal.

Make It Bitesize

Long and drawn-out seminars on cybersecurity can make staff zone out and miss important information. However, by splitting up your training content into bitesize chunks, you can make it more engaging and accessible.

For example, creating short, 15-minute lessons that are available online and can be completed when staff has the time and capacity to concentrate is ideal. This could be in the form of a video or podcast, or even just documents and articles on the latest cybersecurity threats.

However, you decide to approach it, tracking engagement is critical, and you will need to ask staff to complete regular reviews to ensure that the information is taken on board—otherwise, you risk losing out on the benefits of your bitesize cyber security training sessions.

Get Interactive

One way to monitor engagement and ensure your staff benefits from training is to integrate interactive elements. Using this approach, you can begin to gamify the training experience while also monitoring performance and learning outcomes.

Many employees find this method highly effective when learning complex subjects such as cybersecurity. Through online quizzes, interactive animations, puzzles, and other challenges, staff will find greater engagement. Creating leaderboards and top performer charts is also an ideal way to check who is learning what and which team members are gaining the most from the gamified sessions.

Offer Rewards

Rewarding your top performers is a good idea as it will encourage engagement and keep staff coming back for more each month. You can develop long-standing habits that benefit everyone, improving cybersecurity across your company while also helping staff feel good about themselves.

Whether it’s an e-voucher for an online store or a day out for the best performing team, rewards close the loop of your gamified security awareness training, providing tangible goals for staff to work through bitesize information presented in interactive form.

Of course, mitigating cybersecurity threats is a constant effort and one that your company should be committed to at every stage of your employees’ journey—from onboarding to offboarding. However, by gamifying the experience and bringing dynamic elements to your training sessions, you can drive greater engagement and boost knowledge and awareness across your entire business.

Also Read: Data Quality Management