Alert from POPA's grievance team. Please direct inquiries to David Reip at dreip@popa.org by October 26, 2018.
You miss taking mandatory training and get a letter of counseling or reprimand. Fair or unfair? Depends on the circumstances, right? POPA went digging to see for ourselves as to what was going on.
During our digging we learned of examiners:
- missing mandatory training because they were on leave without being offered makeup training upon their return
- unable to register because their CLC homepage marked the course as closed for registration prior to the course’s due date
- who completed training but failed to complete a survey after the final training slide and received letters of counseling
- signing into CLC after having completed a session to confirm the course title and inadvertently overwriting the “date of completion” with a new past-due date
- confusing courses completed with those still due as a result of unnecessarily similar course names and insufficient course descriptions
- overlooking emails for mandatory training where the subject of the email failed to identify the training as mandatory
We took issue with how things were being handled and approached management with a list of remedies on behalf of the entire examining corps. In response, management has agreed to make changes so that it is easier to identify when mandatory training is due and to provide ample opportunities for make-up when employees are unable to take the training.
We have already assisted a number of employees in having letters withdrawn where their absence was inadvertent due to the issues discussed above. However – we have only been able to help those who made us aware of their situation and need to know if you too have been counseled or reprimanded for missing mandatory training and fall into the categories above.
Please email David Reip at DReip@popa.org by October 26, 2018 if you have been disciplined for failing to attend mandatory training and believe your situation merits investigation.
As for mandatory training…is it really mandatory? Yes. Here are some easy and effective ways to ensure that you take all mandatory classes and don’t end up in trouble:
- Keep an eye out for mandatory training emails and use your calendar to set deadline reminders.
- Save a local copy of your certificates as soon as you complete training.
- Inform your SPE as soon as possible if you miss mandatory training due to leave and request a make-up session.
- Inform your SPE if you are unable to register for a course because registration is closed or CLC is unavailable.
- Save e-mails of course completion.