1. HCAMAG.COM
ISSUE 13.11
HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR
HCAMAG.COM
ISSUE 13.11
HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTORHUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR
THE WHO’S WHO
OF HR 2015
DRUG AND
ALCOHOL TESTING
Where do you stand?
20:20 VISION
FOR 2020
HR at adidas Group
LOOKING BEYOND
REMUNERATION
Creative expat benefits
HOTHOT
LIST
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2. FEATURES
40 www.hcamag.com
E-LEARNING
Staying on top of Australia’s complicated employment laws has never been
easy, but e-learning may provide a cost-effective solution for both employees
and managers
EDUCATING
MINDS, CHANGING
BEHAVIOURS
‘MINISTER RESIGNS following employee
bullying allegations’; ‘AFP to pay compensation
over bullying and sexual harassment’; ‘Public
servants’ mental stress claims spiralling’ – these
are just three headlines from the last month
of news stories on HC Online. They point to a
spate of ongoing inappropriate behaviour in
workplaces across Australia.
Australian organisations have both the
obligation and responsibility to protect
their employees from unlawful conduct in
the workplace, yet the approach thus far
for dealing with inappropriate employee
behaviour – including bullying and harassment
– has fallen short. It’s time for a rethink.
A different approach
If knowledge is power, then appropriate
training could provide a solution – but until
now providing that training to both employees
and managers has been prohibitively
expensive.
“Balancing risk against the cost of a
sound safety and appropriate workplace
behaviour strategy is critical to achieving
business success,” says Learning Seat’s Georgia
Edge, product manager – content library.
“Above all, those responsible must protect
their organisation and their people from
unlawful behaviour, maintain an ethical work
environment, and instil a safe work culture.”
In order to create engaging learning
experiences, the legal content is contextualised;
the learners are placed at the centre of
workplace scenarios
She adds that a strong compliance strategy
that delivers contextualised training to support
comprehensive policies is a critical component
in meeting these challenges.
To that end, Learning Seat, in partnership
with law firm Lander & Rogers, has developed
the Law at Work e-learning compliance suite,
which includes:
yy contextualised content that suits all levels
of an organisation
yy clear messaging that fosters a safety
culture and ethical behaviour
yy legally compliant content that supports
your workplace policies
yy trackable online training that provides
evidence of participation
The suite builds on Learning Seat’s 15 years
of e-learning and compliance experience, as
well as consultation with a focus group of
HR directors, people & culture managers and
legal counsel from a diverse range of industries.
The focus group identified the need for a
product with widespread appeal and ease of
use; ideally, it had to be suitable for everyone,
from senior-level roles to frontline workers.
“Balancing narrative-based content with
traditional text-based screens was highlighted
as a priority to meet the needs of diverse
workforces,” says Edge. “Learning Seat already
offers a diverse range of courses covering the
topic of bullying, for example, but clients with
large workforces were looking for choice.
The market has outgrown a ‘one size fits all’
content model.”
While compliance will probably never
be the favourite subject of choice for most
employees (and managers), e-learning has
helped enliven this traditionally grey area.
Learning Seat presented a range of content
concepts to the compliance focus group.
As the hoped-for end goal is not just ‘tick
the box’ compliance but also behavioural
change, Law at Work encourages behavioural
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3. www.hcamag.com 41
Brought to you by
translated into educative material,” says Edge.
The end result is a suite of nine courses on:
yy bullying
yy sexual harassment
yy equal opportunity in employment
yy health & safety
yy electronic communication & social media
yy privacy
yy misleading and deceptive conduct
yy competition law
yy consumer law
All Law at Work courses support compliance
obligations across all Australian states and
territories. Any state-specific information
is delivered via resources accessible in the online
course. Courses are relevant to all employees,
contractors, volunteers, management and
board members, in all industries.
No more ‘tick and flick’ training
For employers still sitting on the fence
about taking a more proactive approach to
enhancing their duty of care towards employee
wellbeing and safety, consider this: the public
service’s annual Comcare bill for bullying,
harassment and ‘occupational violence’ is
approaching $80m, and ‘mental harm’ claims
have increased by 88% since 2009. Trauma
arising from workplace bullying or violence
now makes up the largest proportion of
mental stress compensation claims among
public servants. These claims are reportedly
costing, on average, $342,000 each – but there
have been almost 500 mental stress claims by
public servants over the past five years with a
price tag of $500,000 or more.
Clearly it’s time for a more proactive
approach from employers.
“Effective compliance training should incite
behaviour change and positively impact our
client’s safety culture. Tick-and-flick training is
not enough,” Edge concludes.
change through a combination of immersive
pictorial storytelling, established learning
theories, and traditional audio, video and text-
based knowledge building.
“We consistently hear from our clients that
storytelling in training works, and therefore
we’ve carried this technique through to our
latest product,” says Edge.
To create engaging learning experiences,
the legal content is contextualised; learners are
placed at the centre of workplace scenarios via:
yy emotional connections to human stories
yy real-world scenarios based on case law
yy character point-of-view insights
yy interactive decision points
Legal foundations
Just as important as the learning options – if
not more so given Australia’s complicated
and ever-changing employment laws – is
the content. Importantly, Learning Seat’s 11
in-house e-learning experts collaborated with
16 of Lander & Rogers’ lawyers.
This is not the first time such a collaboration
has occurred. In 2012, Learning Seat partnered
with Lander & Rogers to deliver online
compliance training that aimed to achieve
strong compliance outcomes for businesses,
and a strong engagement response from
learners. The S.A.F.E. Files became Learning
Seat’s compliance solution.
The S.A.F.E. Files compliance suite uses
storytelling to effectively engage its audience, as
well as a range of other techniques to increase
information retention and assist learners to
align with positive safety messaging.
Many of the same learning concepts applied
in The S.A.F.E Files have been broadened
and built upon in the Law at Work suite. The
S.A.F.E Files aimed to:
yy use popular culture to connect with
audiences
yy recognise language and literacy barriers,
and devise communication methods to
overcome these hurdles
yy produce a product that was reflective of
high-quality digital content found across
the internet
“The planning and design process [for
Law at Work] saw our instructional designers
work closely with members of the various legal
teams to ensure the key legal principles that
underpin the training are being accurately
LearningSeatisane-learningsolutionsproviderwith15years
ofexperiencebuildingonlinecompliancetrainingthathelps
businessescreatesafe,reputableandhigh-performance
workplaces.Getmoreinformationatlearningseat.com.auorby
calling1300133151.
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