The Old Way Of Policy Training Isn't Working Anymore

Why Isn't The Old Way Of Policy Training Working Today?

Company leaders and human resources staff nationwide are rethinking the way they train employees on governance-based policies and procedures to address the problems that accompany the current system.

For many employers, today's system for training on governance-based policies and procedures hasn't changed in decades and looks something like this:

1. A new employee is hired.
2. They receive a stack of policies and procedures that require their review.
3. They independently review the policies and procedures and then sign a statement acknowledging that they have read the policies and procedures.
4. At periodic intervals, often annually, the employee again reviews the policies and procedures as a refresher and signs an acknowledgment statement.
5. Human Resources maintains policy acknowledgment statements either in paper form or scanned into an electronic personnel file.

However, there are a few significant holes in this process. Although it might mark off a few boxes, it misses the mark in a number of ways. While it covers documentation of policy review, it does nothing to prove to an auditor or government official that the employee achieves comprehension of the policy. This is dangerous for two reasons: it increases the likelihood of mistakes and inconsistencies, and it increases the risk to the organization in the event that they are audited or required to provide documentation for legal reasons or court cases.

Without comprehension, training is essentially null and void. As a matter of fact, training without evidence of comprehension might not hold up in court should an issue ever reach that point. Additionally, failing to measure comprehension can result in company non-compliance with various rules and regulations.

Next, this process is not cost effective. It leaves your Human Resources staff sorting through paper documents, filing in an outdated filing system, or scanning, uploading, saving, and filing electronically. When the records are requested by internal or external parties, it leaves your human resource staff again sinking funds into salaries and wages while they manually pull and print and copy records. Finally, manually tracking training schedules and compliance due dates is time-consuming and expensive.

A New Option

Technology and innovation have allowed WorkWize to create solutions that are efficient, effective, and highly compliant with federal, state, local, and industry rules and regulations. The solution is called WorkWize LMS, which stands for Learning Management System.

In the WorkWize LMS structure, employees read the policy or procedure, acknowledge that they have read the policy or procedure, and then—if you choose to implement this feature—take a short quiz to measure their comprehension of the policy. This provides a number of benefits over traditional policy and procedure training systems:

1. The employee is much more likely to actually read the policy or procedure if comprehension will be measured afterward. This resolves the problem that occurs when employees sign the policy acknowledgment statement without ever reading the policies.
2. Training documentation is centrally located and automatically tracked and filed, saving time and money for human resources staff and making important documentation easy to find when needed.
3. The eLearning system improves the most important desired outcome of training: comprehension. You now have a system that not only marks off the boxes but truly ensures that employees understand what they're reading and how to apply it in their daily work. Isn't this the real goal of policy and procedure training?
4. Finally, by improving policy comprehensive, you're able to improve policy compliance "on the floor," reducing the risk of safety and quality events.

Electronic training management systems solve the problems accompanying traditional policy and procedure training and transform the way people use, interpret, and apply these important tools in their daily work.

Barriers To Implementation

Although most leaders agree that eLearning is an important element of the employee experience today, many fear that implementing an eLearning solution like WorkWize LMS will be burdensome or time-consuming. The truth is quite the opposite; WorkWize provides the resources and most of the time commitment based on the documents you share. While a small time commitment is important up front, the system will save you uncountable hours over the course of your first year alone.

We also find that leaders delay implementation because their policies are under review. However, ever risk-adverse companies review their policies and procedures on an ongoing basis. The system can be built with what you have today and policies can easily be updated when changes are made. As a matter of fact, an LMS is a perfect solution to changing policies and procedures as it ensures everyone is trained as required and documentation is easy to access.

WorkWize

The WorkWize system is a powerful Compliance-focused Learning Management System. Quickly identify those Offices, Teams or Individuals who don't engage with training, and pose a Risk and Governance issue for the organization.

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