The rapid rise of flexwork is allowing employers to recruit talented individuals almost anywhere in the world. Technology solutions such as video conferencing, cloud-based collaboration, and eLearning tools help narrow the distance between remote workers and the office.
However, a new set of compliance issues rises up when dealing with a geographically diverse workforce, where regulations vary by state.
This makes learning and development a major challenge.
Fortunately, segmenting your eLearning delivery by region or state can help HR pros orchestrate a more efficient and compliant workflow. Leveraging the Rockstar Learning Plartform’s unique tagging functionality, we were able to help our client, which specializes in national compliance training, deliver customized courses of sexual harassment and anti-discrimination training for both employees and supervisors specific to each state in which the individual resides. Here’s how we did it.
The Problem:
Compliance training––such as safety, certifications and harassment courses––is particularly complicated when your workforce is spread out across the globe. Every region has different requirements on how long the training must be, which topics are covered and how assessments are conducted. Add to that the differences in what managers must complete, and you have a very complex and unwieldy process.
In the past, paid instructors might travel to different offices, armed with specialized knowledge about local regulations and what has to be included for each employee to be certified. This worked well because the subject matter expert was accountable for all legal requirements, not the HR team.
In our example, the client facilitated the courses for a number of different companies. The compliance training they conduct is now required annually. As in-person instruction became more logistically challenging and cost-prohibitive, eLearning seemed like an ideal solution, but without on-site facilitation, there was no reliable way to ensure the required training was going to the correct individuals.
With multiple states mandating unique requirements and different courses for employees and supervisors, there are enough different combinations to make the job of an HR manager dizzying. Distributing the wrong training module is an annoyance for an individual learner, but a potentially serious legal issue for the employer.
The Solution:
The curriculum was designed by an employment law firm with a unique focus on the supervisor’s role in properly identifying and managing sexual harassment and anti-discrimination claims when they arise. The challenge for this solution was easily delivering a program that allowed each HR manager to enroll their own employees and supervisors in the appropriate state-mandated version of the training that each role required.
The first step was to create the various courses and make adjustments according to state and local regulations. This is best achieved through an authoring tool that integrates with an LMS to host and manage the content. In this case, our Rockstar Learning Platform provides a consistent user experience and allows managers to track each worker’s progress.
Once the courses were developed and approved for use, the secret to delivering them correctly was leveraging our unique tagging system. Each course can be marked as employee or supervisor material, and then categorized by location. Based on a learner’s enrollment, these tags ensure the assignment to the appropriate version unique to their role and location.
In this model, the HR manager is not tasked with sorting through multiple different versions of a single course then selecting a module on a case-by-case basis. Instead, the HR office uses an onboarding form to collect and input a few simple data points related to role and location.
Once a learner is enrolled with the required data, the system becomes a plug-and-play solution. Each team member logs in and sees only the course material that applies to their role and regional location. All activity is tracked in the platform so the HR manager can verify the required course completions. It is a simple, yet powerful, solution to what can otherwise be a complicated and costly procedural responsibility.
Results:
Our client was able to scale this technology and apply it to more than 50 companies with over 2,800 employees and supervisors trained. Each HR manager needs only to send invites, assign users, and track the results.
Any organization with workers in multiple locations can benefit from a similar geographic tagging system. In addition to compliance training, there are questions of payroll, taxes, benefits and consistency that could all be simplified through auto-assignment based on your role at the company and where you reside.
Instead of spending countless hours manually ensuring that regional laws are followed across state lines, this automated solution creates an environment where all employees and supervisors are educated properly and problems are identified and reported correctly and efficiently. This allows the HR professional to focus on remedying difficult situations and developing a better workplace culture based on understanding and proactive prevention rather than simply checking the boxes.
Sign up for a free Rockstar Learning Platform account to try this out for yourself.
