WelcoMe vs Annual Accessibility Training: What's the Difference?

Most venues do accessibility training once a year. A 30-minute e-learning module, a completion certificate, a tick in the compliance spreadsheet. Six months later, a disabled customer arrives and staff can't remember what they learned.

This isn't a criticism of the staff. It's how human memory works. The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve shows that people forget approximately 70% of new information within 24 hours without reinforcement.

So what's the alternative?

	Annual Training	WelcoMe Adaptive Training
Frequency	Once a year	Ongoing micro-touchpoints (2-3 min each)
Format	Single module, slides or video	Scenario-based questions with active recall
Retention after 6 months	~10-20% (forgetting curve)	80%+ (spaced repetition flattens the curve)
Personalisation	Same content for everyone	Adapts to individual retention rates
Visit preparation	None: training is generic	Just-in-time: staff get specific briefings before visits
Measures	Completion (did they finish?)	Competence (do they know it?)
Compliance	Certificate generated	Competence verified and tracked
Cost model	Per-module or per-seat licence	Included in WelcoMe platform subscription
Scenario relevance	Generic disability awareness	Sector-specific: retail, hospitality, transport, theatre, stadia, councils

Why does this matter in practice?

Consider two venues. Both have trained their staff on disability awareness.

Venue A

Did annual training six months ago. A Deaf customer arrives for a pre-booked consultation. The receptionist has forgotten the communication access training. They speak too quickly, don't face the customer, and don't know that a pen and paper can bridge the gap. The customer leaves frustrated.

Venue B

Uses WelcoMe. The receptionist completed a 2-minute refresher on communication access last week. When the Deaf customer's visit was booked via WelcoMe Key, the team received a specific briefing: the customer lipreads, prefers face-to-face communication, and has requested a well-lit meeting room. The consultation goes smoothly.

Same staff capability. Same customer. Completely different outcomes.

What about compliance?

Annual training generates completion certificates. WelcoMe generates competence evidence.

Under the Equality Act 2010, venues have an anticipatory duty to make reasonable adjustments. If a disabled customer has a poor experience and the venue can only show that staff completed a module 9 months ago, the evidence of genuine preparedness is thin.

WelcoMe tracks what staff actually know, not just what they've clicked through. The system identifies knowledge gaps and reinforces weak areas automatically. If a venue needs to demonstrate that staff were genuinely competent at the time of an incident, the evidence is there.

What does the research say?

The evidence base for spaced repetition over massed practice (cramming) is extensive:

Ebbinghaus (1885) established the forgetting curve and the principle that spaced review slows memory decay.
Murre & Dros (2015) replicated Ebbinghaus's findings with modern methods, confirming the original results.
Kang (2016) found spaced repetition can improve long-term retention by up to 200% compared to massed practice.
Wollstein & Jabbour (2022) demonstrated that adaptive spaced repetition achieves equivalent outcomes with less total study time.

Annual training isn't bad training. It's training delivered in a way that human memory can't retain. WelcoMe solves the retention problem.