February 2004

By Deepjot Chhabra, Oracle

The fallout from corporate scandals over the past few years has placed a great deal of emphasis on promoting responsible corporate leadership, while largely ignoring the mechanics of bringing workforces into compliance with today's complex and varied regulations. Employees may be committing breaches of security, confidentiality, business ethics or industry regulations without even knowing it, while following time-honored business procedures.

Not surprisingly, corporations are finding that education is the key to help ensure all employees comply with regulations. But today, education is being delivered using a different vehicle. In the past, employees were given on-the-job training by other employees or put through a formal training program. Companies now are realizing that it is dangerous to presume that an adequate transference of knowledge and skills occurred. Does the new bookkeeper understand the ramifications of Sarbanes-Oxley? How much of two days of intensive training is retained? Was the company's code of ethics given the weight it deserves? While traditional methods of training still have a place in the workplace, compliance requires a more systematic, frequent and well-documented approach.

For most organizations, the best way to regularly train and monitor the entire workforce is through Web-based training, which should be linked directly to human resource (HR) systems. With employee information stored in one place within the HR system, training can be tailored to job descriptions, skill requirements and/or compliance responsibilities. For example, self-guided Web and computer learning can be used for the dissemination of general information enterprisewide, while costly instructor-led classroom instruction can be reserved for specialized occupational and managerial training.

Finally, there must be a measurement of performance, so the organization can measure compliance with legislative and regulatory laws, as well as corporate policies and standards. These measurements must be accessible to the line of business managers, HR professionals and employees so individuals may monitor their own progress.

Through integrated online training and learning programs, companies can proactively educate employees about critical regulations that not only impact their daily work, but also have significant impact on the entire company.

Deepjot Chhabra is vice president of global human resources management systems (HRMS) product development within the applications division at Oracle Corp. (www.oracle.com). He is responsible for development of the Oracle HRMS suite, specifically Oracle Human Resources, Oracle HR Intelligence, Oracle iLearning, Oracle iRecruitment and Oracle Self-Service HR.

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