Off-site training through videoconferencing or a company intranet became more prevalent in 2007 as the business world has become more globalized, some experts say.
“E-training is definitely being used a lot more; it”™s a flat world,” said Nancy Haas, president of Haas Consulting Services in Newtown. “You can have a trainer in one spot and employees all over the world.”
The use of videoconferencing is the most popular form of “e-training,” said Hass, but another way to conduct training or continuing education programs for offsite employees is through an online curriculum accessible companywide.
“That way employees can do it at their own leisure,” she said.
According to estimates calculated by the American Society for Training & Development, U.S. organizations spent $129.60 billion on employee learning and development in 2006.
This amount reflects direct learning expenditures such as the teaching staff salaries, administrative costs and nonsalary delivery costs.
Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. total ($79.85 billion) was spent internally, such as on salaries and internal development costs. The remainder ($49.75 billion) was allocated to external services, such as workshops, vendors and offsite events.
The average direct training expenditure per employee in the consolidated sample of organizations rose to $1,040 per employee in 2006, an increase of 1.76 percent from 2004.
But some training programs should be taught in person due to the subject matter”™s serious workplace implications.
“There are still some programs that highly benefit the employee and employer by doing in-classroom training,” said Haas. “Such as programs dealing with discrimination issues, and workplace and sexual harassment.”
Many states, including Connecticut, require management-level employees to take a harassment training course within six months of being appointed to their position.
“But really, training on harassment should be required from the CEO to everyone on down in the company,” Haas said. “Everyone can be a victim and everyone can be a perpetrator.”
She said the recent sexual harassment case involving Madison Square Garden (MSG) made many companies more aware of the need for harassment training in the workplace.
That case involved a female employee of MSG, Anuche Browne Sanders, who sued New York Knicks President Isiah Thomas and MSG for sexual harassment.
She claimed Thomas had made demeaning statements to her, as well as making sexual advances and repeatedly telling her that he was in love with her. Madison Square Garden was ordered to pay Browne Sanders $11.6 million, one of the largest sexual harassment judgments in American history. The Knicks are appealing.
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The MSG case is only the most recent example of a multimillion dollar judgment in such cases.
Five years ago, PepsiCo Inc. and subsidiary South Beach Beverage Company Inc. settled a U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission lawsuit for $1.8 million. The suit charged that five SoBe beverage employees were subjected to egregious sexual harassment and retaliation at the company”™s Norwalk headquarters.
“The MSG case was an epiphany to lots of companies,” said Haas. “It brought the issue to the forefront and helped wake up many companies.”
In the case a company does face a sexual harassment suit, Haas said having training programs already implemented will likely make a jury or judge look more favorably on that company than if they had no programs.
“(A company) can say, ”˜Look, we”™ve done everything we can to train employees,”™” she said. “Companies should have policies, and know how to react and how to deal with (sexual harassment allegations).”
In the fiscal year ending last June, the Connecticut Office of Human rights received 188 complaints of sexual harassment statewide, 5 percent of the total number of employment-related filings filed with the agency. Those filings included 428 cases of other types of harassment, and 507 allegations of workplace retaliation.
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