When we started using BVS earlier this year we assigned a BSA course to all employees with a deadline. Although my feelings are similar to ComplyGuy's, Human Resources sent a $5.00 gift certificate to everyone who completed with a passing grade by the deadline. We only did that the first time.

We also use Bankers Edge in conjunction with BVS. We assign courses based on the position with a deadline for successful completion. Failure to do so has a direct impact on promotions as well as annual salary increases. I have received very favorable feedback especially on the fair lending courses from my lenders. I even had one thank me for assigning the course to her.

I am going to present the courses on Thursday and Friday. I know the first thing will be " I don't have time for that" But like it was said earlier, they find time to leave early. What is an annual raise?

We've been using ICBA's online training courses since Jan. 2002. Icba offers 34 different courses that cover most banking areas. Their program also allows you to track each employee to find out how well they've done on each course. The courses are assigned to fit job descriptions and I've gotten good feedback from our employees. The great thing about online courses is employees can take these courses over & over again (at home or at work)if necessary until they understand it. Our bank offered one year's free internet to employees for their home computers as long as they complete & pass at least 6 courses throughout the year. This seems to being working well. We are a smaller community bank with approximately 55 employees.

Compliance Coach and the Sheshonoff product were mentioned to me as possible options - anyone have comments about these products?

I went back and read my earlier post on this topic and boy have things changed! We made the decision to go with BVS and have been with them a year now. It is working very well. It is one part of our total training system. We also do outside seminars, use local resources, in-house resources and webcasts (BOL of course!). This allows us to present material in a variety of ways.

I just took my annual privacy training on BVS and was very pleased with the quality of the material.

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Lisa N - I was just curious about why you don't want people taking the test over and over and over until they get it right. In my mind, the employee is getting just as much training as if they had read the course material all over again.

Some people do not learn well by simply reading. They need more interaction, and the constant repetitition of responding to questions, with immediate feedback on "right" or "wrong" answers seems to do well for these folks.

JMTC (Just my two cents)

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This is Lisa N, now known as Compliance Buzz.....

What was acuatlly happening was that people would take the test 15 or 20 times until they passed it, never even looking at the training, simply because they didn't have time to take the training and didn't care about the couse.

I would have to disagree that you are actually learning something at that point because it's pretty obvious that if you have to take the test over and over and over again, it's not sinking in. I not only assign training to comply with the regulatory requirements, but to hopefully have confidence that our employees walk away with more than a passing score.

I use the computer training to replace that training which I cannot do or would rather not do in person. If employees are going to take advantage of it, we'll have to go back to in-house sessions. I was trying to avoid that and get people serious about the training courses.

Since my post last year, I've been assigned training oversight, with an emphasis on actually using the BVS online training we'd contracted for last year.

In our small shop, training has traditionally been a limited-time, all-employees event. Many of the BVS canned courses don't fit into our timeframe. However, our rep has been great about helping me customize (edit) their courses to fit time-wise.

Also, I see potential for specific employees to get the level of training appropriate for their position. For example, BVS has one EFT course that is general enough for the mass group, but they also have a detailed Reg E course that I assigned to our electronic banking manager.

I just assigned a course to the lenders. They like the idea of being able to take the course when they have time rather than force a group meeting. That's not to say that any of them have actually completed the course yet.

We've been using BVS for several years and have found it very effective. When we first started using it, we had trouble getting people to complete the assigned courses, but once we made it a part of their evaluation and incentive programs, it's not a problem any longer. We don't give an incentive for taking the training, but an employee can lose their other incentives for not taking the rquired courses. We assign one course per month based on job duties. It's been a great program for us.