RLI program holds managers accountable for preventing lawsuits

ANDREW’S CHALLENGE

‘No time to train’ put the company at risk.

Diamond Pets is the world’s fifth largest pet food producer. It has five plants and 980 employees. Its key metric is “customer satisfaction as well as tons produced” and Andrew’s goal was to make sure that productivity wouldn’t be negatively affected by long training sessions. At the same time, he needed a training solution that would hold managers accountable for gaining a practical knowledge of employment law so they’d avoid the behaviors that lead to lawsuits.

Wow, only 5 minutes and I actually got something out of that.”

ANDREW’S FIRST REACTION

“Some of the online training I’d seen in the past could bore lead paint off a car

But then I saw an RLI video and thought ‘Wow, only 5 minutes and I actually got something out of that.’ I really liked the realworld examples. They always described situations I could relate to. The programs are engaging, valuable and accurate so I decided to deploy them to our entire company.”

THE SOLUTION RLI PROVIDED

Short lawsuit-prevention videos edited by employment law attorneys that:

• Are specifically designed for line managers and supervisors
• Offer real-world scenarios based on actual legal cases
• Give managers proven rules of thumb for tricky situations that could easily be mishandled

RESULTS

The RLI program created accountability.

A manager behaved inappropriately and triggered a harassment complaint. HR brought the manager in and he said, “I didn’t know that what I did could get me into trouble.” This manager had been assigned a curriculum of RLI Quick Take videos on various aspects of employment law. The company was able to document that the manager had watched courses on harassment and discrimination. Andrew said, “Because we had the RLI program, we were able to say, ‘Yes you did know. We tracked that you watched those videos and passed the quiz.’” For Andrew, The RLI program was a good insurance policy: “RLI definitely gives us the tools to hold people accountable.

RLI definitely gives us the tools to hold people accountable.

ANDREW’S ADVICE FOR DEPLOYING RLI

Don’t let lack of measurable ROI stop you from training your people.

“There’s no single way to measure ROI,” says Andrew. “If we get sued, we’re not going to have to go to court and say, ‘We didn’t train our managers on employment law.’ You’ve got accountability. That’s a return. When you have supervisors who know how to talk to and relate to their people, their shifts perform better. You have less absenteeism and better retention. That’s a return. Bottom line, when you develop your people long-term, you help your product. Period and end of story.”