Five Reasons Why Employees Hate Cyber Security Training

Most employees hate taking cybersecurity awareness training. It doesn’t have be that way. If you want your security awareness training program to be effective, address some of the most common user complaints.

Here are five common complaints of security awareness training and the ways to make your people like and engage with Cyber Training to make them love it.

Cybersecurity awareness Training is said to be Boring: It can be boring, at least the way most organisations do it. Make it more exciting, vary it, and make it a game. Security awareness training videos that look like professional, Netflix-style episodes are the ones I’ve seen employees ask for more of. Security awareness training companies do this sort of thing, or professional production companies will customise videos for your company.
Employees don’t understand the importance of security awareness training: Make sure that employees know how important security awareness training is to their own success and to the organization’s. If the organisation has been hacked, don’t hide the details. Let all employees know how it happened, what the hacker did, and how it could have been avoided.
Security awareness training isn’t Personal: If you want to make someone care, make it personal. Don’t just train them for protecting your business. Let employees know you care about them and their families. Give them training and tools to help them be more cybersecurity aware at home. Employees who train their spouses, parents, and children in cybersecurity awareness will be one of your best defenders at work.
Security awareness Training isn’t timely: Make sure your security awareness training program is personalised, targeted to the user’s role, and appropriate for the time of the season. For example, don’t give training on how to avoid fake invoices and malicious wiring transfers to employees who don’t pay bills. Make sure all employees are trained on how to avoid fake information requests for their personal tax identification information and that HR/payroll department employees receive training in how to avoid fake information requests from someone claiming to be their organisation’s tax processor. Give instructions on how to avoid fake gift card scams around Christmas. Instruct people on how to appropriately patch their systems and how to appropriately recognise their installed anti-malware programs so they can’t be fooled by a fake version of either.
Security awareness Training feels punitive: You’ve got to motivate people to take the training, but if you make it fun and different, you can motivate people to want to learn more. The gamification I talked about earlier is a good way to do it. For example, tell every employee who reports 100% of all real and simulated phishing emails for a year, that they will get an Amazon gift card. Make the amount enough so that they will care. Then tell them to watch a few videos to learn about what to be on the lookout for. Tell them every month they’ll get a different topic and that they’ll be tested on that topic and others in the following month. Companies whose cybersecurity awareness training programs use all these tactics have employees who are better, happier, and safer because of them.