Here we look at the essential legal compliance training that employers should put into place, depending on the nature of their business.
Each year, hundreds of UK companies are prosecuted for non-compliance, with fines totalling millions of pounds, due to staff errors.
Many of these penalties could have been prevented if adequate compliance training and processes had been put into place during the staff induction and onboarding process, and with subsequent refresher courses. This page covers some of the most common regulatory compliance training for employers, depending on your industry.
Many areas of law relevant to employers have seen a great deal of change over recent years, and companies / organisations involved in handling personal customer data, finance, information technology, and work with young or vulnerable people have been particularly affected. Elsewhere, certain industries like Construction and Hospitality & Catering have always been closely regulated, and scrutiny of companies in these fields is closer than ever.
Hospitality & Catering
Every business within the hospitality and catering industry must ensure that their staff adhere to the latest health and safety legislation and that customers are given the highest food safety standards. Food safety and hygiene training can be particularly tricky for employers, as work is often seasonal, attracting a relatively young workforce and leading to high staff turnover.
However, cutting corners with staff training is not worth the financial and reputational risk of breaching the relevant legislation. The Health and Safety Executive brought 650 prosecutions in the year 2014/15, with a 93% conviction rate, and fines totalling £16.5 million. More prosecutions were brought by local authorities. The risk especially nonsensical when you consider that these days much learning can be completed online at very low cost.
For example, an online food hygiene course is available to buy for as little as £25 and takes under an hour to complete. It should cover the HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) food safety management system. The HACCP principles followed guide those involved in food manufacturing and food service processes.
Building / Construction
Understanding of and adherence to legal compliance issues is essential for not just construction companies, but suppliers of building suppliers and support service providers. It is not surprising that this industry is highly regulated, given that over 20% of workplace fatalities occurred on construction sites in the 2018/19 financial year.
The government is keen to bring this figure down, and since July 2014, a Level 1 Award in Health and Safety in a Construction Environment qualification must be achieved as a precursor to the Construction Skills Certificate Scheme – CSCS ‘Green Card’, a legal requirement for a worker to even enter a construction site.
As of April 2015, the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015, also known as CDM, replaced previous legislation from 2007. The CDM is a set of regulations to manage health, safety and welfare on construction projects. The CITB – Construction Industry Training Board – is a leading source of information, workshops and courses on adhering to the new CDM regulations.
Financial Services
The fast-changing financial services sector is highly regulated to ensure fairness and transparency across all market activity. Areas that come under particular scrutiny include the trading of shares and the sale of insurance products, but all corporations, financial institutions and other organisations must comply with the latest financial law.
While many degree programmes give managers and staff broad training fundamental to further study in this area, many employers require short training courses to bring their teams up to speed with the latest finance legislation.
The Risks and Controls – Board CPD course is delivered in London as a half day, face to face programme, and covers the following key areas of risk management training:
- Expectations of boards in respect of risk management
- Governance structures and models
- Key risk and control management information
- Risk appetite
- Risk awareness and management within an organisation’s culture
The course cost at the time of writing is £350.
Course Provider:
Corporate Training Partnerships
499 Silbury Boulevard
Milton Keynes
Buckinghamshire
MK9 2AH
Telephone: 01908 488 170
Education & Social Care
The ever-present scrutiny on child welfare in schools, plus widely reported incidents of neglect and mistreatment of vulnerable young people and adults within the social care system, means that employers in this fields should place a great deal of importance into thorough and strictly-followed staff training.
Courses in safeguarding young people can be delivered quickly and at a low cost. Key learning outcomes should include:
- Identifying children and adults most at risk from abuse, exploitation and self-harm.
- Relevant legislation related to safeguarding and a knowledge of the support structures in place to help vulnerable people and education or social care providers
- Strategies and tactics to help ensure effective safeguarding in schools or care environments
- Appropriate actions and reporting procedures if abuse, exploitation or self harm are spotted.
Online training courses in safeguarding children and vulnerable adults can be purchased online from a range of companies for as little as £25 per learner. They will tend to have interactive learning content that takes less than an hour to complete, but instills the learner with the above fundamentals.
Leadership & Management (All Employers)
As soon as you take on staff, you must ensure that your company and its managers adhere to relevant employment legislation, in addition to whatever regulatory guidelines are relevant for your industry. You don’t necessarily need to engage the services of an employment solicitor, but adequate training in how to treat and manage your staff can prevent you needing one for more costly court proceeding down the line if things were to go wrong.
Equality and diversity training courses can be hugely beneficial to help ensure that candidates and employees are treated in an unbiased and fair manner. This starts at the recruitment advertising stage, and carries through to filtering and interviewing candidates, agreeing terms of employment, managing their workloads and working conditions, and supporting their opportunities for career progression.
Even details such as the way time off work for illness or personal issues can be an employment legislation minefield and even unconscious biases or long-standing, but outdated company procedures could land an employer in trouble.
Online Equality and Diversity training courses developed by the likes of Virtual College are available from as little as £30 and can be completed in just 2 hours. Suach a course helps the learner to improve his or her knowledge and understanding of equality & diversity issues, as well as how to promote it. This should help many employers to avoid mistakes that could lead to employment tribunals related to unfair dismissal claims, cases of harassment, discrimination claims and other incidents that are costly in terms of legal fees or company reputation.
Legislation Affecting All Sectors
Bribery Act 2010
All UK companies must ensure that their processes adhere to the Bribery Act 2010 and that they have adequate awareness and preventative measures in place. Incidents of bribery in the workplace can bring fines of up to 10% of company turnover and lead to a firm being barred from tendering for EU public contracts.
Interactive training on the Bribery Act can be bought online from £30.
Anti Money Laundering
What money laundering is, how it works, how to spot it, how to prevent it and the latest UK anti money laundering legislation. Easy to use, online video based training is available from a number of providers.
Data Protection
The Data Protection Act 1998 was introduced to prevent misuse of an individual’s personal information, and is regulated by the Information Commissioner’s Office, also known as the ICO. With the proliferation of information technology in the workplace, management of customer, employee or other personal data has become increasingly complex, and many companies have been prosecuted and / or been fined for its mismanagement.
Walkgrove offer a range of compliance elearning courses to help businesses avoid breaking the law.
Health and Safety at Work
Employers are legally responsible for the health and safety of their staff while in the workplace, and breaches of this duty of care can lead to criminal prosecution.
As laid out in the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974, staff are also responsible for the affect of their actions on the welfare of their colleagues, and breaching employer’s guidelines in this area could put them at risk of prosecution.
A short course in workplace safety will cover key areas relevant to many working environments, including Slips, Trips and Falls, Fire Safety, Manual Handling and more.
Expert Advice on Compliance Training Courses & Strategy
Learning Light have over 10 years of experience in guiding individuals, businesses and other organisations in choosing the most effective and best value training for their needs. They have particular expertise in organising and signposting low cost elearning courses, and their experts include consultants who have delivered training for legal and regulatory compliance, employability, and business performance. Individuals, SMEs and larger companies alike are welcomed to discuss low cost, individual compliance training courses, licences for teams, or strategic advice for learning and development projects.
Learning Light Ltd
Sheffield Technology Parks
Suite 21, Cooper Buildings
Arundel Street
Sheffield
South Yorkshire
S1 2NS
Telephone: 0114 307 2357
ICSA: The Governance Institute is a professional body with over 125 years of experience in corporate governance. Its experts help to create the framework for fair and effective business practices, and offer advice on adhering to the latest law and regulatory best practices. They are also compliance training providers, offering regular courses and workshops.
ICSA: The Governance Institute
Saffron Hourse
6-10 Kirby Street
London
EC1N 8TS
UK
Telephone: 0207 580 4741
We will aim to add to this page and keep the information contained up to date, but if you have any suggestions for great training courses on industry bodies / advice that you feel would add value, please do contact us with details.