HR is all about documentation. You document a performance discussion. You document disciplinary actions. You document agreed upon goals. It’s interesting how, when it comes to compliance training, both HR professionals and trainers forget about the idea behind documentation. Last Thursday, I was speaking to a group of compliance managers and I asked them why we document HR actions. I received answers such as: “To have a record.” ”To cover ourselves.” ”To avoid factual disputes.” These are all good answers. Why then, when it comes to compliance training are practitioners even thinking of handling that through live training? If you ever get a government agency audit, inquiry or claim, you’ll be asked to show your relevant compliance training. If you show a power point presentation (assuming you have it) and a sign-in list (assuming you have the signatures you need), that only gets you part of the way there. It shows you did some training but it still leaves open a lot of questions (time spent in class, time spent per topic, class discussions, were learners present during entire class, etc.).
When it comes to compliance training, you ultimately need to prove you did it. If you’re training in a format that makes it difficult for you to prove, you’ve just wasted time and resources as shown in the situation highlighted in this case study.