Talent Management - December 2008 - (Page 35)

organizational compliance requirements. Here’s a look at a few such innovations: Innovation 1: Managing Change While it makes little sense to retrain every single employee every time a regulation is released or an old one is updated, that’s exactly what companies have traditionally done. Older LMSs typically offered no automated means to determine which individuals needed to be trained based on whether their job tasks were impacted by a regulatory change. Now, revision management LMS functionality makes that possible. Whenever a regulation is introduced or changed, LMSs can automatically cascade all changes through the system; incorporate information and training assignments tied to the change into development plans for every employee impacted; and monitor employee records to determine whether system-assigned tasks have been completed. Innovation 2: Meeting the Burden of Proof Companies that conduct business in regulated environments understand the importance of documentation. Talent managers can train people and take as many steps as possible to ensure they meet all of the industry’s regulatory requirements. However, unless they can demonstrate via tangible reports and auditable tracking that they’ve complied with the rules, most regulators will not give credit for meeting regulatory guidelines. Further, accuracy, security and validity of trainingand compliance-related data stored in a company’s LMS are critical to compliance-related record keeping. Unfortunately, compliance with many federal regulations historically required companies to maintain strict procedural and security controls over LMS electronic records. Because of this limitation, many organizations operating under regulators’ close scrutiny continued to use manual, paper-based processes to track and store compliance-related data well into the digital age. Thanks to another recent LMS innovation, companies operating in heavily regulated industries now have the option to implement a bulletproof, paperless recordkeeping system. One way LMSs now protect electronic, compliance-related records and prevent unauthorized access to data is through the use of electronic signatures that typically consist of a unique user name and password combination. These signatures can be used to protect information related to both learning events — including completion and attempted completion of training-related requirements or activities — and assessment events such as records of individuals’ mastery of particular skills or obtained knowledge on speciﬁc topics. A pharmaceutical manufacturing company that needs to meet Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recordkeeping requirements, for example, can use such an LMS to limit accessibility to training records by set- ting speciﬁc security permissions for entering, deleting and modifying training history. These records can be safeguarded further by implementing several layers of authentication and other controls designed to maintain the uniqueness and integrity of each user name and password combination. Now LMSs also are capable of safeguarding compliancerelated data through audit-trail functionality that allows any action impacting compliance data to be tracked and recorded. For example, when anyone uses his or her user name and password to log in to the system and modify a record, these modiﬁcations can be automatically logged in a detailed event transaction history table. This table records the user’s name and the date and time of the transaction. It also includes a column that indicates the nature of the change — for example, whether a creation, modiﬁcation or deletion occurred — and a snapshot of the data prior to the change. These controls mean auditors perusing the system can view all learning and assessment events, as well as historical records that depict how data has been changed and by whom. Innovation 3: Integration With Critical Business Processes As LMS systems have evolved, they have been integrated with other critical business processes to ensure critical compliance rules are enforced. This integration has emerged as a safeguard for organizations and employees alike. If an employee has not met speciﬁc compliance requirements, the LMS will automatically send a message to another system, telling it to deactivate the employee’s badge, key or credentials that give that employee access to the equipment or processes impacted by noncompliance. For example, a pharmaceutical industry employee who has not completed the necessary training required to operate a speciﬁc drug dispensing machine cannot use his credentials to access and operate that machine until required training is completed. Similarly, crane operators who have not completed mandated safety training for operating that piece of equipment, or whose credentials have expired, will not be able to operate that equipment. In the airline industry, maintenance workers who have not completed mandatory compliance training may be denied access to equipment or workstations required to perform maintenance. Taken together, these three innovations not only provide talent managers with a virtually foolproof system to seamlessly manage critically important training data, they also provide companies with the necessary safeguards their customers and regulators demand while also protecting their bottom lines. December 2008 Ed Cohen is chief technology ofﬁcer at Plateau Systems, a talent management solutions provider. He can be reached at editor@talentmgt.com. talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com 35 http://www.talentmgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Talent Management - December 2008

Talent Management - December 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - December 2008

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