New Online Training Addresses Sexual Harassment, Discrimination and Substance Abuse

Summit Global Partners, a Dallas-based risk management and employee benefits consulting firm, is introducing an Internet-based training and development service that focuses on employment issues such as sexual harassment, age and sex discrimination, substance abuse, violence in the workplace and wrongful discharge.

Employees access the HighTechCampus.com coursework from their own computers, at work or at home. The service documents the trainee's comprehension of the material on an ongoing basis, the company said.

Recent verdicts, such as the 1998 order requiring Mitsubishi Motors Corp. to pay a record $34 million to settle charges of sexual harassment, support the need for easy access to this type of training, said Gary Griffith, chairman, Summit Global Partners. "A major part of harassment and discrimination prevention is employee training."

Since 1993, total training budgets for U.S. companies have increased by 24 percent, according to figures compiled by Training Magazine's Industry Report 1999. In 1999, training budgets grew to a nationwide figure of $62.5 billion for companies of 100 employees or more.

Sexual harassment training is the first course available from Summit Global Partners. It is comprised of two 45-minute sessions, using streaming video and interactive content. Trainees are continually probed about their comprehension of the material, the company said.

Employers can customize the HighTechCampus.com training by imbedding their own policies into the modules. Human resource directors and business owners are automatically notified when an employee completes the course.

"This kind of material needs to be out in front of employees and not tucked away in some manual," said John Ivancevich, Summit Global Partners vice president and a former business professor.

HighTechCampus.com is available on a per-course basis and fees are determined based on the number of employees who participate. The company can develop coursework specific to the training needs of individual companies, as well.

For more information on the courses, visit www.hightechcampus.com.