At Learn Q, we make sure that we offer courses that cover a wide range of expertise, skills and, of course, industries.
Some of the courses we offer are mandatory (i.e. a legal requirement) for companies in the finance industry, some are highly recommended and help your business to run smoothly while others represent a fantastic way to develop the skills that will help you and your colleagues to be the best that you can be within your chosen career path or industry.
Learn Q can help you with these requirements. Here is our guide to the training courses that we offer which are relevant to finance businesses.
Mandatory Courses
The best place to start is by learning which courses you must provide to the colleagues working within your business to comply with UK legal requirements.
We suggest that these courses are made a part of your onboarding process so that you can ensure that all New Starters go through the relevant training.
The main legislation that is applicable to finance businesses are:
Mandatory courses for the finance industry include:
Any business can be at risk of money laundering; however, the practice of essentially “cleaning” money from criminal activity is often seen in the finance industry. As a business owner, you need to ensure that you understand how to protect yourself from money laundering. You also need to provide your colleagues with anti-money laundering training so that they can be aware too.
In the UK, due to the Bribery Act 2010 it is a legal requirement for all businesses to ensure adequate training and protection is in place against bribery and corruption. Bribery can and does happen in businesses around the world; protecting yourself from the impact of bribery is important, and the best way to do this is to ensure that every colleague within your business understands what bribery is and what they need to do to stop it from happening.
GDPR regulations are related to how you store and use customer data, so this may or may not be something that is applicable to your business. If you collect and store any personal information on customers, such as names, email addresses, phone numbers or physical address details then it will apply to you. Failure to comply with GDPR and consumer data requests could see your business facing fines of up to £18 million, or four per cent of annual turnover, whichever is greater. In order to protect your business, it is vital you and your employees have an understanding of the principles of GDPR and what to do in the case of requests.
As outlined in the Health and Safety First Aid Regulations 1981 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employers should ensure the number of trained first aiders, first aid facilities and equipment at their workplace is adequate for the needs of the workplace. If your colleagues work on-site, ensuring they all take a health and safety course will help them to gain a deeper understanding of health and safety basics, the most common health and safety risks and how to avoid them, and the obligations of employers and employees. This will go a long way to helping you remain compliant, keep colleagues safe and prevent any legal action against your business.
Under UK law (Fire Safety Order 2005 and Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999), a company must provide appropriate firefighting equipment, ensure that colleagues know what to do in the event of a fire, assess fire risks to your individual business and have a fire risk assessment available at all times. A fire safety course is one of the most common ways to ensure you are compliant, covering the basics of fire safety and giving your colleagues an understanding of how to keep themselves and those around them safe. It shows the ways that a fire can develop and what can lower the risk of fires, as well as what to do in the case of a fire. If you have a number of colleagues, you may also want at least one member of your team to complete Risk Assessment Awareness training so that you can carry out appropriate risk assessments within the business, and RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) Awareness so that your colleagues know how they should report any work-related illnesses and injuries.
The Equality Act 2010 contains sections that specifically relate to sexual harassment in the workplace, and in July 2021, the UK government introduced legislation meaning employers are now responsible for providing a workplace free of harassment, meaning that as well as providing employees with up-to-date training in anti-harassment, employers must demonstrate that they have current anti-harassment policies in place. Harassment is against the law and if a colleague is harassed it could lead to an employment tribunal involving your business. This means that you should do what you can to limit the instances of workplace harassment and how it can be reported and prevented. This workplace harassment course looks at social media, physical bullying and how bullying can be influenced by prejudices and stereotypes.
Display Screen Equipment (DSE)
DSE training is a legal requirement for anybody working with display screen equipment on a regular basis. Working with computers and display screens is often a key part of working in finance and can take up large portions of the working day. This means that you will need to carry out DSE assessments with colleagues and a course can be a great way to increase awareness and keep colleagues free from injuries that could keep them off work or do them permanent harm. Learn Q’s online course covers the basics of working with Display Screen Equipment and how to stay safe when it comes to working with a screen.
If you work with a number of colleagues, another consideration is equality and diversity training. The Equality Act 2010 means that equal opportunities for everyone must be available in all businesses. This training is designed so that you not only understand how to improve diversity in your own business, but also so your colleagues understand equality and diversity and what they must do to ensure it.
Strongly recommended courses
Alongside the courses that are a must legally to offer employees within your business, there are also some key courses that we strongly recommend that you offer. These can often reduce risk in your business, help to safeguard your organisation from financial losses, help you to provide a high level of service and/or contribute to a safe working environment for organisation and your customers.
It is well worth also including these courses as a part of your new starter onboarding process to ensure that they have all the relevant skills and knowledge to be able to complete their work safely.
Health and Safety Risk Assessment Awareness
Whilst every employee needs to be aware of health and safety, and how it impacts them, not everyone will need to know more about health and safety risk assessments. However, there will be at least one person, if not more (it is recommended to have at least one person trained for every 50 employees), that will need to understand how to carry out a risk assessment.
RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations)
If you work in an office environment, then there is going to be a much lower chance of injuries occurring within the workplace. However, they can and do still happen, and it is important for colleagues to know how these should be reported so that they, and the business, are covered in case of longer-term impacts.
Whether you train your colleagues on Safeguarding may depend on the exact nature of your business (and a relevant risk assessment), but wherever colleagues are working with or for people that may be classed as ‘vulnerable’ – this may be a requirement. Safeguarding training ensures that your colleagues recognise the types and signs of abuse, including financial abuse, and know what steps to take if they have any safeguarding concerns so that vulnerable people are protected. It is likely the most relevant safeguarding courses for your business will be safeguarding for adults:
However, safeguarding for children may also be useful for some, if not all, of your colleagues.
Safeguarding Children and Young People Level 1
Safeguarding Children and Young People Level 2
Whilst it is great to be surrounded by so much tech and to be able to run our businesses virtually, it must also be acknowledged that the modern world, and particularly remote working, has introduced new risks that were easier to manage previously. This includes cyber security. In 2021, the average cost of a cyber security breach was £2.9 million (source: itgovernance.co.uk).
Providing your colleagues with Cyber Security Awareness training will ensure that they have the tools that they need to limit the chances of a security breach, loss of data and related lawsuits are limited.
Recommended courses
Our final list of courses in the guide are ‘recommended’. These courses are not necessarily vital to have, but they are always a good idea to offer to your colleagues, particularly if you don’t already have a provision to cover the skills and knowledge offered. These courses can help set your colleagues business apart from your competitors, and ensure that colleagues have the tools that they need to always be at their best.
Complaints happen, in every business and industry no matter how hard you try to provide a great product or service. Knowing how to properly handle a complaint can make a world of difference and can limit the damage done to your company and reputation or even change customer’s minds and turn them into advocates. Learn Q’s Complaints Handling course covers some of the key things you and your colleagues should know about dealing with complaints.
To run a successful business, you are going to need happy customers. Some colleagues are naturals when it comes to speaking to customers, while some require more guidance. However, most people will still benefit from some formal training. Learn Q’s Customer Service training helps provide colleagues with amazing interpersonal skills so that they can deliver a great service and represent your company in the best way possible.
Being able to manage your own time is a key part of being as productive and successful in your working day. Therefore, it makes sense that this is a course that you are going to want to give yourself and your colleagues access to.
Learn Q’s Time Management Awareness course covers the many tips and techniques to ensure that you are using every second in the best way possible and can be applied not only to the way that you work but also to your everyday life too.
Meetings are part and parcel of working life; however, how often do you sit in a meeting and think that the time could have been better spent? Our Efficient Meeting course ensures that any meetings that are scheduled are delivered concisely and in a way that meets the objectives of the meeting rather than wasting time.
One of the hardest parts of being a manager is managing the people that you work with. Not only that, but effective management can be the key to unlocking potential, increasing efficiency and providing highly performing teams. Ultimately, good management leads to better business success.
The main aim of this course is to ensure that managers know how to get the most from their teams whilst giving them the best support.
No matter how confident you are as a person, the idea of presenting to other people can be daunting. Making sure that you come across as knowledgeable and confident no matter what the setting.
Appraising your employees is a key part of running a business. It not only gives you the chance to discuss how the job is going but also looks at things that can be improved and deliver praise for what is going well.
It can be a hard part of the job and is certainly not something that many managers enjoy. However, we have created our colleague’s appraisal skills course to help this process to run smoothly.
How often do colleagues need to take this training?
The answer to the question of how often the courses should be repeated is not always as straightforward as you may hope and there is not necessarily a set answer across all organisations. For many courses it will really depend on the type of course that is being taken and the nature of what you do. Ideally, the refresh regularity should be based on a thorough risk assessment of your business and tailored to the unique needs of your organisation and customers.
That said, if you are looking for a general rule, then we would say every 12 months is good practice for most of the courses that we offer.
There are some exclusions to this that do need to be kept in mind:
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