Designed and developed in response to feedback from FSA regulated lenders and intermediaries, flexible basic and refresher courses lighten training loads for ancillary staff and graduates of the previous year’s programme.
The FSAs mortgage regulations state that firms must provide ongoing competence training for staff. As the first anniversary of regulation approaches, firms have been asking for courseware that complements first year training programmes.
The CMLs senior policy adviser on regulation, Kate Davies, said: “Last year our members’ fixed concern was compliance without risk. This year, more methodical firms have asked us to help manage the tricky transition from “set up” to “ongoing” programmes by adapting courseware to reflect staff roles and past training. The basic and refresher courses directly cut the demands made by training on precious time and resources.”
Firms can now put non-customer facing employees, who deal with a lighter regulatory burden, through a basic course that favours plain English over jargon and strips out unnecessary and time consuming study areas for low risk staff.
Similarly, the refresher course focuses on practical, real-life case studies to bring graduates back up to speed with last year’s learning. The lighter touch approach is expected to cut study time by as much as 50 per cent and allows customer-facing staff to spend more time on revenue generating activities.
The new courses do not mean staff will be able to cut corners. The testing phase, underpinned by Absolutely Training’s patent protected Q&A system, remains as before and all employees must prove they understand relevant regulations. Should they require additional learning support, staff can return to the original, full programme at any point for more detail.
“Today, firms want their training processes to work effectively,” said Shaun Walsh, course director at Absolutely Training, “but as they learn the regulatory ropes, they also want them to work more smoothly. We designed the original course to ensure compliance while saving firms both time and money. Today we’ve simply done more of the same.”
