About Illinois Required Training Solutions
Leslie Paton, Registrar
At Illinois Required Training Solutions, we’re operators. Operational excellence means dealing with change, so over the years, we’ve earned a lot of experience in helping people adapt. As a direct result, we became experts in best practices of training that support the quick implementation of correct, safe and efficient practices. So, while we’re experienced curriculum developers, we’re not a classic training company. We feel our unique approach to this training qualifies us to provide your very best training experience ever.
Here are some specifics:
We Developed Our Solution For Our Own Use
In 2018, one of our small businesses captured a contract to develop self-driven training modules for NOAA and the FAA. As a part of that federal contract, we needed to provide sexual harassment prevention training to everyone who worked on the contract. Then, because we’re domiciled in a state that leads the country both in terms of sexual harassment strictures and training mandates (no, not Illinois), we needed to repeat the curriculum development process for our own state compliance. With iterations, testing, automated 24/7/365 hosting, and legal and compliance reviews, it was a big project. “What a pain for businesses”, we thought. “Nobody has time to do all this. Let’s share our training solution and let folks get back to work quickly and inexpensively.” Required Training Solutions (a dba of Cogent Investments Inc.) was born.
And then, since our customers requested it, we expanded. And we’ve been growing ever since. Whether under the name Required Training Solutions, Illinois Required Training Solutions, California Required Training Solutions, Connecticut Required Training Solutions, Maine Required Training Solutions, etc., we provide the same high-impact training at aggressively low cost to maximize customer value.
We’re Qualified. And Then Some.
We meet and exceed the requirements for a qualified trainer under the highly restrictive California statute. We’re proud that Illinois Required Training Solutions became licensed as a Professional Counselor Continuing Education Sponsor with the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, and later under the Illinois Division of Real Estate as a Real Estate Education Provider. Likewise when California Required Training Solutions achieved licensing as a Continuing Education Registered Provider with the California Dental Board.
Beyond state requirements, however, we also know a lot about human behavior in the workplace. We have experience in companies large and small. Our expertise spans product manufacturing, service, and financial enterprises. We have served for-profits, not-for-profits, and public-private partnerships. Leading Fortune 500 companies as well as startups and mom-and-pops brought rich experience. We have counseled line staff, supervisors, managers, and VPs on countless individual HR issues.
From the shop floor to the boardroom, we’ve seen the dynamics. So we know the behaviors that federal and state statutes were intended to address. We put all that experience into the curricula we developed specifically for each state’s prevention training mandate.
We make it easy for workers
At Illinois Required Training Solutions, we offer a fast, simple online training solution to new sexual harassment prevention training mandates. www.illinoisreq.com features online courses that are available 24/7, self-paced, bookmarked, and, where necessary, timed. Students can stop and start as many times as necessary without resetting the timer, and retest until they pass. Immediately upon finishing the course, students can download and print or email their certificate of completion.
Employers find our training solution easy too
Employers find Illinois Required Training Solutions’ online shopping cart system easy to use and course licensing easy to manage after purchase. Just add the desired number of courses of the language you choose to the cart, then complete your purchase using a credit card. Immediately the purchaser receives an email with hyperlinks for distribution to the employees who must train. The purchaser can then see which link has been used by which employee in real-time via the site dashboard, and download certificates of completion for their own filing.
We won’t sell you or your info.
At Illinois Required Training Solutions, we’re not trying to sell you any more training. So we won’t try to impress you with a panoply of high production value courses you don’t want or need. We do not insist on knowing the CEO’s email address. No offers of HR, payroll, benefits, or workers’ compensation insurance will come via us. No positioning ourselves as a strategic partner you don’t need. And we won’t sell your employee list or spam you or your staff. We wouldn’t want anyone to do that to us or to our staff.
Low Cost By Focusing on the Essentials
At Illinois Required Training Solutions, we focus on the purpose of the exercise and manage to that purpose.
As one example, we don’t use a lot of videos in our training. Videos tend to freeze, suck bandwidth, and don’t pause and recover well in “stop and start” training. Moreover, videos get stale quickly and can soon become more distracting than educating. What does work are scenarios, where employees are engaged and challenged by real-world examples. They don’t need to see creepy behavior acted out on screen to imagine a set of circumstances. As videos are super expensive to produce, we can pass a lower price point on to you without impacting the training’s effectiveness.
Our trainings are extremely interactive. We learned from user feedback that the lessons need to be concise, with more short quizzes throughout the content rather than fewer, lengthier exams. Students wanted to see topics visually illustrated, but without disturbing images. So we feature simple photos like a gavel, a state Capitol building, a dollar bill. These clearly further the content without icky subliminal discomfort.
Every design choice is focused on helping your workers treat each other professionally and with respect. Your customers and vendors will benefit as well.
The Bottom Line
At Illinois Required Training Solutions, we know the importance of getting your folks compliant and back to work quickly, without breaking the bank. Our solution is designed to do just that.
