by Meghan Webley, Customer Success Representative
If a risk management department wants to be truly successful with their RMIS system, training helps form the foundation for that success. Training unifies users with consistent understanding and increases system reliance, so you get the most from your technological investment. With true knowledge of how the system works, a risk management department can better employ the tools to dissect data efficiently. With proper training, a RMIS system becomes a more user-friendly and powerful tool.
Omit Training at Your Own Risk
There are several risks that can occur when a risk management department doesn’t integrate training into their rollout. Often, some users get frustrated with the RMIS system because they don’t understand how it works. A simple example of this is when certain data fields designed to capture critical information are set as required, but users get stuck there because they don’t know about that functionality. Without the required information, a RMIS system such as Centurisk’s RMIS, will generally pop-up an error message explaining that “all required fields have not been entered.” For a non-trained user, the frustration of this often results in that user avoiding the RMIS system altogether.
Another huge risk that piggy-backs off the first point is that without proper training, a risk department runs the high chance of integrating inconsistent data into their system. This is because, without training, users are unaware that there are such things as good data, bad data, and missing data, and what each of those elements entails as defined by the organization. A RMIS system is used to track and capture a myriad of details. As a result, a lack of training can cause a risk management department to be out of compliance in certain areas due to the unreliable data, and not even realize it.
The Organizational Benefits of Training
When your risk management department incorporates training into the rollout of its RMIS system, new users gain a better, more user-friendly first impression of the software. Training should walk through the systems, allowing users to get hands-on experience with the page layouts and learn each of the features, explaining why they’re important to the business process. As an Centurisk Customer Success Representative, my goal is to ensure that every user leaves a training session understanding their RMIS system, trusting it will capture and provide the data they need, and feeling confident that they’ll be successful using it.
When you think about it, the very purpose of a risk management department is risk avoidance. Ultimately, the RMIS system should support risk avoidance goals, and training becomes an important part of that.
The benefits of RMIS training can reach beyond the risk management department, as well. While many different functions within a RMIS system benefit a risk management team, they also can benefit other departments such as insurance underwriters. The data captured can be processed via reports and used to ease and streamline insurance renewals. It just reiterates the importance of users being trained to understand and leverage the RMIS system to its full capacity.
A Personal Note on Why Training Makes a Difference
Once, I trained a group that was switching to a RMIS software system for their risk management processes, after years of experience working with all paper. Understandably, they were a little hesitant to make the switch. Prior to training, they received user IDs to start playing around with the system.
Initially, they were overwhelmed with the newness and confused about the process flow—since, with a RMIS system, there’s no paper trail. However, after a training class, they had a new sense of excitement. They learned how much easier, faster, and more effective working with our software would be, eliminating paper but not eliminating the records, since the software retains a history of all changes. The training class gave the users a clearer view of their system and pointed out certain features they hadn’t discovered, even after time with the system on their own. It gave them tools to shape otherwise lengthy manual processes into a quick and more automated flow. They became energized when they realized how beneficial the software would be for their jobs, instead of having to print, scan, etc.
The Right Beginning for All New Productivity
In conclusion, training is a powerful tool for a risk management department looking to deploy a new RMIS system. I have experienced the “ah-ha moment” firsthand of new users who see how beneficial, user-friendly, and effective the automation of RMIS system can be. I love it when a new group of users is confident that their training was done thoroughly, that all will be tracked and recorded correctly, and realize the benefits to their risk department are only beginning.
About the Author
Meghan Webley lives right outside Charlotte, NC in Indian Trial, with her husband, Dwight, and her one year old daughter, Jaida. Aside from representing Centurisk as a part of the customer success team, Meghan keeps herself busy being a full-time mom who enjoys baking, gardening, and home renovations.
Want to learn more about Centurisk’s RMIS software? Check it out here.