Governing for Results 13 - Washington State Digital Archives

Department of Information Services
Online Harassment Course – Increases Awareness
Sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace can be devastating and
expensive in terms of employee morale, motivation and productivity. Employee
awareness and prompt intervention to prevent harassment and discrimination
can be key factors in reducing such behaviors. Providing training to all
Department of Information Services (DIS) employees on mandatory training
requirements, such as harassment and discrimination topics, is difficult to
arrange and expensive. DIS has staff on duty 7 days a week, 24 hours a day,
requiring elaborate scheduling requirements when staff are out attending
mandatory training. To support WA state executive order and DIS agency policy
of ensuring all employees complete a sexual harassment and discrimination
training course, we contracted with a vendor named SmartForce to offer our
employees this course online. The course defines the legal concepts of
discrimination and harassment in the workplace. It explains the implications of
such behavior and outlines the strategy a manager should use in dealing with a
complaint from an employee. The course takes 2-3 hours to complete. It cost
DIS $2.75 per employee to enroll and within 6 months of widely launching the
online training course 98% of our staff have completed the course. To view the
course online go to Inside Washington at:
http://inside.wa.gov/content/channels/training/smartforce.asp
Results
★ Increased awareness through consistent training curriculum.
★ 98% of the agency’s staff completed the course in 6 months (July - Dec).
★ Reduced training registration fee from $50 to $2.75 per employee resulting in
a cost avoidance of $18,900 dollars for 400 DIS employees.
★ Eliminated travel and overtime expenses.
★ Increased accessibility of training opportunity (available 24 hours) anytime,
anywhere training opportunity.
Team Name: Online Discrimination and Harassment Training Team
Team Members: Carol Wozniak, David Norman, Shelly Bray-Mark, Kris
Baumgarten
CONTACT: Carol Wozniak, (360) 902-3506
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