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Training, certificates and required hours

Plan courses and sessions, nominate people or let them ask to join, mark who attended, and issue certificates that expire. A yearly check shows who is short of the training hours their group must do.
PLANSScale only
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The problem it solves

  • The safety refresher or the first-aid certificate lapses, and you find out during an audit.
  • Teachers or supervisors must do a set number of training hours a year, and the count sits in a register nobody totals.
  • People sign up for a session without their manager knowing, or a session fills beyond the room.
  • Certificates earned outside sit in someone's inbox and never reach the employee's record.

How it works

  1. HR sets up courses once: category, in-house, external or online, duration, and whether it gives a certificate valid for so many months.
  2. HR plans a session on the Training Calendar: dates, place or online link, trainer, seats and a nomination deadline. Then HR clicks Open for Nominations.
  3. HR adds anyone, a manager nominates their own team, and an employee can press Ask to Join. A request waits for the reporting manager or HR to approve it.
  4. After the session the trainer or HR marks each person Attended or Absent and clicks Close Session. Attending credits the hours and, for a course with a certificate, issues one with its expiry date.
  5. People give feedback and print their certificate. Training > Training Hours shows, per employee and category, the hours required, the hours done and how short each person is.

Everything it does

Courses and sessions

  • Course: name, category, kind (In-house, External, Online), provider, Duration (hours), Gives a Certificate, Certificate Valid (months; 0 means it does not expire), description
  • Five categories to start with: Professional development, Health and safety, Compliance (POSH, child protection, data privacy), Induction, Soft skills and leadership
  • Session: starts and ends, hours credited (the course's duration unless you change it), location, online link, trainer from your staff or an external trainer
  • Capacity (0 means no limit) and a nomination deadline; a full session takes no more people
  • A session is Draft, Open for Nominations, Done or Cancelled; Back to Draft reopens a cancelled one

Nominations and requests

  • HR nominates anyone in their Entities; a manager nominates only their own team
  • An employee can ask to join an open session up to the nomination deadline, when Employees Can Ask to Join is on
  • A person is Asked to Join, Nominated, Attended, Absent, Not Approved or Withdrawn
  • The employee or the manager can withdraw before the session is done
  • Nobody decides their own request to join

Attendance, feedback and certificates

  • The session's trainer (if on your staff) or HR marks Attended or Absent; a session cannot close while anyone is unmarked
  • Attended credits the session's hours; marking Absent later removes the hours and the certificate
  • A course with a certificate issues one on attendance, dated the session's last day, expiring after Certificate Valid (months)
  • The Certificate button prints a certificate of completion as a PDF
  • After attending, the person gives a rating from 1 (Poor) to 5 (Excellent) and a comment; the session shows the average
  • An employee adds a certificate earned elsewhere with the file, dates and hours. It counts only after HR clicks Verify, and a verified one can be changed only by HR
  • Certificates show as Valid, Expiring Soon (within 30 days) or Expired

Required hours and reports

  • Required Training Hours: hours a year for a group, for one training category or for any training
  • A rule can apply to an Entity, location, department, staff category, employment type, designation, grade, stage or one employee; the most specific rule wins
  • Training Hours: choose the Entity, the dates (this calendar year to start with) and a department
  • Hours done count sessions attended and verified uploaded certificates in those dates
  • The Training dashboard: open sessions, nominations waiting, training hours, certificates expiring in the next 60 days, participants by status and hours by category
  • Each employee's record has a Training tab, and the employee 360 view lists recent trainings and certificates

Who uses it

EmployeeAsks to join open sessions, withdraws, gives feedback, prints certificates and adds certificates earned elsewhere.
Reporting managerNominates the team and approves or declines the team's requests to join.
Trainer (staff)Marks attendance on their sessions and closes them.
Training UserCourses, sessions, nominations for anyone, attendance, verifying certificates and the Training Hours report. HR Managers have it.
Training ManagerAlso sets the training categories and the required hours, and can delete. The HR Head has it.

Where you use it

  • Web: HRMS > Training (Dashboard, Training Calendar, My Trainings, Open Trainings, Team Nominations, Certificates, Courses, Training Hours, Configuration)
  • Web: the employee's record, Training tab, for training staff
  • The SmartMy HRMS app: Menu > Training (my trainings, open to join, certificates, add a certificate with a photo). Menu > Team training for managers; Menu > Training (built and in testing, not in the app stores yet)
  • Not in the app: planning sessions, courses and set-up are done on the web
  • Not built in HRMS: online lessons and quizzes; those come with SmartMy Learn

What you control

Settings

  • Training categories: five to start with, per Entity or for all
  • Course: In-house, 1 hour, no certificate, to start with
  • Certificate Valid (months): 0, does not expire
  • Session capacity: 0, no limit; Employees Can Ask to Join: on
  • Required Training Hours: none until you add them
  • Training Hours report: this calendar year, Only Short of Hours on

Approvals

  • Training request: made when an employee asks to join; the reporting manager or a Training User by default, with levels you add per Entity

Notifications

  • Training Nomination: to the person, when nominated for an open session or when their request is approved, and again the day before. In the app, by email and as a phone notice
  • Request to Join a Training: to the approvers of the request; in the app, by email and as a phone notice
  • Certificate Expiring: to the employee and the Entity's training staff, once, 30 days before expiry; in the app, by email and as a phone notice
  • These go out at once; each person can switch off a channel, such as email, but in-app notices always arrive

Works with

SmartMy LearnA finished online course gives an HR training certificate with its hours, category and expiry, and counts toward the required hours.

Questions

Can an employee sign up without the manager knowing?

No. Ask to Join makes a request that waits for the reporting manager or HR. The person is on the session only once it is approved, and is told then.

How do we know a certificate is about to lapse?

Thirty days before it expires, the employee and the training staff of the Entity are told once. The Certificates list also has Expiring Soon and Expired filters, and the dashboard counts those expiring in 60 days.

Do certificates earned outside count toward the required hours?

Yes, once HR verifies them. The employee adds the certificate with its hours and the file, on the web or with a photo in the app. Until HR clicks Verify, its hours are not counted.

Can different groups have different required hours?

Yes. Add a rule for each group under Required Training Hours, for example teachers 20 hours of professional development and drivers 8 hours of safety. The most specific rule for a person wins.

Can we track the cost of each training?

Not yet. Sessions have no cost or budget fields. Training hours, attendance and certificates are tracked.

Related features

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See your own month run in it.

Tell us how many people you have, how you take attendance and how your salary is structured. We will show you SmartMy HRMS set up that way.
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