Corporate Compliance Training, Online Harassment HR Training Elearning, HR Blog at emTRAiN

Those who teach compliance topics know that learner engagement always stems from the real-life examples shared with the class.

Good trainers are typically good storytellers who can bring a particular case or workplace situation to life and hold learners’ attention.

When the class is live, oral storytelling works because the trainer communicates with his or her facial expressions, her gestures and other body movements . . . In addition to the words she uses.

Yet, when the oral storytelling is transferred to an eLearning medium, it doesn’t work as well because the communication of facial expressions, gestures and other bodily movements is stripped away and what is left is about 40% to 50% of the original communication. It’s like driving a car with half an engine.

Certainly, utilizing pictures and voiceover helps address the issue and gives learners something to view and/or hear. But, as Filmmaker Andrew Stanton (“Toy Story,” “WALL-E”) said in a 2012 TED talk, people give rapt attention to stories they care about and they care when the “story” captures a truth and resonates emotionally with their life experience. (See http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_stanton_the_clues_to_a_great_story.html) It’s pretty difficult to emotionally engage an audience with stock photos and voiceover . . . Particularly when that audience is accustomed to viewing videos at the click of the mouse.

David Wentworth from Brandon Hall hits the mark with his summary of the changing dynamics of organizational compliance. Compliance is moving from a transactional training experience to an important element of corporate culture. Read the article here:

http://www.brandonhall.com/blogs/compliance-comes-front-and-center/

Want a short video clip (2 min) illustrating a workplace issue? Perhaps a short video modeling desired skills or behavior?

If so, participate in our contest and submit your idea. The video with the most “likes” wins and gets produced.

The winner gets their video at no cost to them and with our compliments. See link for more details:

http://tinyurl.com/bw6cgcm

Last month, Director Phyllis Cheng of California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (the largest civil rights agency in the U.S.) said her agency is gearing up to handle more class actions in light of a recent California law eliminating administrative procedures and allowing the state agency to file lawsuits in court.

The DFEH, which mainly deals with employment disputes alleging discrimination, harassment and retaliation but also works on housing discrimination, public accommodation and hate violence cases, has seen a steady increase in complaints to nearly 20,000 filings last year.

In an interview last month, Cheng said she expects the agency to launch more employment suits, given the recent change in law that allows the DFEH to bring claims directly to court and collect their attorneys’ fees and costs if they prevail.

“This is going to transform civil rights enforcement in California,” Cheng said. “It really raises the bar on the seriousness of cases we prosecute and is going to have a greater impact on the employer community to comply. … It gives us more tools to fully carry out our mission of eliminating discrimination, harassment and retaliation.”

Further, in 2010, the high court ruled in Chavez v. City of Los Angeles that attorneys’ fees can be denied in low-recovery employment discrimination cases.

“[This decision] means the department is going to get more cases and that the ability to bring civil actions is going to be very important,” Cheng said. “There is going to be more activity at the department, and more complaints will stay within the department.”

As an example of the types of cases we can expect from the DFEH, just look to that agency’s handling of a class action alleging Verizon violated the California Family Rights Act — a case in which the department secured $6 million, its largest settlement ever.

“Not only did the [Verizon] settlement change the policy and practices for a large employer, it affected all employers, because everyone heard about this case,” she said.

I came across this helpful Employment Practices Risk Management linkedin post by Jeff Nowak, regarding a PowerPoint training deck offered by the DOL for FMLA/ADAAA issues. His article can be accessed here

Jeff Nowak’s thought was that employers may want to leverage the deck for their internal training, which makes sense. I reviewed the ppt deck and it does look very helpful, if a bit long. HR professionals may want to streamline the presentation a bit and then upload it into our Claro tool to make an eLearning course out of it that can be assigned to managers. Given the amount of management mistakes in this area, it’s worth spending 30 minutes of training time. Email me at jyancey@emtrain.com if you have questions or need some help tailoring the training to your organization.

The DOL’s PowerPoint can be accessed here (PPT).

Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) participated in a “Tweet Chat” discussing the pay gap between women and men. The Equal Pay Tweetchat, using the hashtag #talkpay, was sponsored by the National Women’s Law Center. The EEOC seeks to increase awareness of gender-based wage discrimination. The most recent data shows that women earn 77% of what men earn in a full time salary.

This topic is also addressed in a new book by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO. In her book, Lean In, Sandberg discusses how womens’ progress in the workplace has stagnated since women comprise 14% of corporate leadership today and that percentage hasn’t changed in 10 years. Sandberg, one of the most successful women in corporate America, makes the point that unless we consciously try to close the leadership gender gap by recognizing and addressing gender differences, the gender gap will continue and perhaps even increase in the future.

I read Lean In over the weekend. It’s easy reading, thought provoking and I believe it should be required reading for anyone in HR, Diversity or senior management.

I’m encouraged that Sandberg went out on a limb and wrote this book, which seems to be a community service to everyone. As someone who focuses on workplace issues, I usually see senior women pretend like there are no gender issues. The “corporate speak” and lack of authenticity is frustrating and impedes progress. I think some women worked extremely hard, fought through barriers and achieved their desired level of success, but don’t have any personal motivation to change the current power structure. And, as Sandberg points out, when men control the power, they simply don’t “see” issues that don’t affect them very much. For example, take a look at the following video and you’ll see a classic example of two men not understanding that they’ve just excluded a woman and quashed her chance to strengthen a business relationship. After watching this video, I hope everyone will join the Lean In non-profit organization at leanin.org.

Prosecutors charged Rengan Rajaratnam, the brother of Raj Rajaratnam, the founder of hedge fund Galleon Group, with insider trading alleging he used insider information about a $1 billion Intel acquisition to reap more than $1 million in illegal profits.

According to federal prosecutors, Rengan used nonpublic information gained by his brother to illegally trade on shares in Advanced Micro Devices and was part of a large network of Raj Rajaratnam’s co-conspirators taking part in illegal trading, according to Preet Bharara, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

“As alleged, Rengan Rajaratnam and his brother shared more than DNA; they also shared a penchant for insider trading,” Bharara said in a statement. “Along with his brother Raj, Rengan Rajaratnam was allegedly at the heart of an insider trading scheme that swept up an unprecedented number of people in its web of corruption, and with his indictment, we are one step closer to closing that chapter.”

Rajaratnam was charged with six counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy, and faces 20 years’ imprisonment on each court, prosecutors said.

According to the criminal charages, Anil Kumar, a partner at the consulting firm of McKinsey & Co was privy to inside information about Advanced Micro Devices and tipped the information to Rengan. The inside information about Intel came from Intel employee Rajiv Goel, who also tipped information to Rengan.

Given the charges and the evidence presented in his brother’s trial, Rengan may soon join his older brother who is now serving his 11-year prison sentence.

The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission are more aggressive than they’ve been in years in terms of eliminating business fraud and corruption. Don’t just publish a policy or code of conduct, educate your employees about the issues.

According to a news report by the Washington Post, President Barack Obama is expected to nominate Thomas Perez, the current head of the Department of Justice’s civil rights unit, as Secretary of the Department of Labor. If true, Perez would fill the position vacated by former Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, who resigned in January.

Perez has been the leader at the civil rights division since October 2009 and before that, he served as secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, an agency that enforces consumer rights, workplace safety and wage-and-hour laws, among other issues.

If nominated and confirmed, Perez is expected to be an aggressive advocate for workers and someone who will push strongly for increased worker protections.