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URMIA Survey Shows Practices for Training Compliance Tracking

By URMIA Staff posted 03-20-2015 11:56 AM

  
Tracking Training Compliance

By Carol Munn, CRM, C.P.M., Director of Procurement & Risk Management at Alvernia University and Glenn Klinksiek, Knowledge Center Content Manager at URMIA.

Introduction
URMIA surveyed its members in February 2015 to find out what the current practices are for tracking training and background checks in higher education. Tracking the ever increasing number of mandatory trainings and background checks for compliance has become arduous. How can you demonstrate that everyone has had the training required by law or institutional policy? The goal of this survey was to learn how colleges and universities manage tracking compliance requirements, who does the tracking, and what they track.

From the 76 survey responses, the key findings of the survey are:

  • Only a quarter of responding institutions indicated satisfaction with their current tracking system while over 40 percent are in the process of implementing a new system.
  • The primary way institutions place responsibility for training compliance and for tracking is distributed to the units that are responsible for compliance with the particular regulations.
  • Educational institutions use a variety of systems to track training compliance, mostly home-grown, suggesting no commercially available system has become the preferred solution to the training tracking challenge.

Demographics
Responses were fairly evenly split between public and private institutions with 48 percent (36) of the respondents from public institutions and 52 percent (39) of the respondents from private institutions. Responses were also fairly split between institutions with student full time equivalent populations of less than 5,000, between 5,000 and 15,000, and over 15,000.

Table 1: Full Time Equivalent enrollment at respondents’ institutions.

Table 1: full time equivalent enrollment at respondent institutions

Satisfaction with Tracking Systems
Fewer than 25 percent of respondents were satisfied with the tracking system at their institution. Of the rest, more than 40 percent are working to implement a new system. These observations held true for public and private institutions. Institutions with lower enrollment are either satisfied with their system or not working on improving them. Medium and large institutions tend to be working on new systems if they are not satisfied with their current process.

Table 2: Satisfaction with existing tracking processes at respondents’ institutions.

Table 2: Satisfaction with Existing Tracking Processes

Responsibility for Training Compliance and for Tracking Training
The survey sought to find out where responsibility for compliance with employee training and background check compliance rests and who is responsible for tracking training. The options for compliance responsibility are:

  • Distributed (designated departments or units are responsible for training compliance in specified areas; for example, EH&S ensures employees receive OSHA required training while HR ensures all required employee background checks are performed)
  • Decentralized (departments and units have the responsibility to know what training is required of their employees and to ensure that they get it)
  • Centralized (one department or unit ensures compliance with most training requirements)
  • Employee-centric (employees are responsible for obtaining the training they need)
  • Not designated

The survey indicates that nearly 60 percent of the time responsibility is distributed to departments with functional responsibilities in the area subject to the training requirements. Less than 20 percent of responses say that responsibility for compliance is centralized.

Figure 1: Responsibility for ensuring employees and others have received required employee trainings and background checks (76 responses):

Figure 1: Compliance tracking method

Private institutions appear to have centralized responsibility for training compliance slightly more frequently than public institutions while public institutions seem to prefer distributed responsibility.

Table 3: Responsibility for ensuring training compliance at respondents’ institutions by institution type.

Table 3: Compliance Tracking Methods

Most institutions have distributed responsibility for ensuring training compliance, and none of the respondents use the employee-centric model. Smaller institutions tend to have more centralized responsibility for training compliance than larger institutions, but fewer small institutions have distributed responsibility than larger schools.

Table 4: Responsibility for ensuring training compliance at respondents’ institutions by FTE

Table 4: Responsibility for Ensuring Training Compliance

As with responsibility for compliance, responsibility for tracking training and background checks can be done in five ways. The breakdown of tracking responsibility among the five possibilities shows that this responsibility is frequently distributed just as it is for compliance responsibility. However, relatively more institutions have centralized responsibility for tracking than use the decentralized approach.

Figure 2: Responsibility for tracking required employee trainings and background checks (managing the data but not necessarily overseeing compliance) (76 responses):

Figure 2: Responsibility for Tracking Required Training and Background Checks

The survey shows that three-quarters of the institutions responding to the survey place responsibility for compliance and for tracking in the same way. The 19 institutions that placed responsibility differently did so as shown in the following table. Institutions' compliance responsibilities are listed in the left column and tracking responsibilities are listed in the right column. The numbers in parentheses list the number of institutions that responded with having a tracking responsibility and compliance responsibility in that category.

Table 5: Placement of Tracking Responsibility When Different Than Training Responsibility.

Private institutions more frequently have centralized responsibility for tracking training than public schools just as they did for responsibility for training compliance. However, the shift to centralized tracking responsibility comes from decentralized responsibility rather than distributed responsibility.

Table 6: Responsibility for ensuring training compliance at respondents’ institutions by institution type

Table 6: Responsibility for Ensuring Training Compliance

Smaller institutions tend to have more centralized responsibility for training compliance than larger institutions, but fewer small institutions have distributed responsibility than larger schools.

Table 7: Responsibility for ensuring training compliance at respondents’ institutions by FTE

Table 7: Responsibility for Ensuring Training Compliance

Tracking System
If responsibilities for tracking are centralized, the survey showed that human resources almost always handles the task. Legal was mentioned by two respondents while two institutions said risk management shares the responsibility with legal or human resources.

For centrally managed systems, other departments can enter training information into the central system about half the time. The table below shows how often specific units can do so according to the survey.

Table 8: Departments with access to training tracking at institutions with centralized tracking

Table 8: Departments with Access to Training Tracking

The survey responses indicate that colleges and universities use a range of systems to track training. At this point,  institutions seem to use homegrown systems more than enterprise systems.

Table 9: Systems used to track training at respondents’ institutions

Table 9: Systems Used to Track Training

Other systems used by respondents include:

  1. Banner
  2. Colleague
  3. Blackboard
  4. HIS – PC Complaince Training Module
  5. Absorb Learning Management System
  6. Metric Stream
  7. Sakai and My Learning
  8. Skillsoft
  9. Success Factors
  10. Webadvisor, Ellucian
  11. WeComply
  12. Workplace Answers and Student Success

Some training generates certificates as evidence of completion. In addressing where to keep these certificates, colleges and universities have not settled on any particular place to keep them as shown in the chart below.

Table 10: How respondents’ institutions track completion certificates

Table 10: How Institutions Track Completion Certificates

Options mentioned by respondents for certificate retention include:

Those needing training are commonly informed about the process by letter, memo or email directly according to the survey. Most institutions make the training process part of new employee orientation. About 75 percent of respondents use more than one way to communicate the tracking process while 20 institutions use only one method.

Table 11: Tools used to communicate the tracking process at respondents’ institutions

Table 11: Tools Used to Communicate Tracking Processes

Besides the methods listed in the chart, other ways to communicate the tracking process include:

  1. Certificates are sent to the trainees once confirmation of completion is received.
  2. Completions recorded in our software.
  3. Vendor keeps track of completions.
  4. Varies, depending on the nature of the training requirement.
  5. Learning management system generates certificates and retains electronically.

Respondents indicated no predominate way to ensure compliance. About 30 percent use management reports to show compliance and another 30 percent have a compliance function responsible for assurance. A similar number of institutions have no method for assuring compliance.

Table 12: Training and background compliance responsibility at respondents’ institutions

Table 12: Training and Background Compliance Responsibility

Colleges and universities track a wide variety of training and background check requirements; the survey asked about 19 specifically. The table below shows the frequency of which the respondents said their institution tracks them. The survey did not ask why some were tracked while others were not.

Table 13: Types of training and background checks tracked by respondents’ institutions

Table 13: Types of Training and Background Checks Tracked

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