A skills gap refers to the space between what employers want or need their employees to be able to achieve, and what employees actually have the know-how and experience to do. At the moment, there seems to be unrest in the UK regarding the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the amount of cyber-security and data-handling professionals that are available to help organisations comply by the deadline in May 2018.

Since GDPR affects nearly every organisation in the EU (and all those who wish to do business with EU countries) – and with constant warnings and alarming headlines about large penalties for breaches of GDPR legislation (up to €20M) – it is perhaps understandable that UK organisations are feeling the pressure along with everyone else.

The question remains, though, how best to bring employees up to speed, particularly those who need a good understanding of the basic principles and directives of the GDPR, but who wouldn’t need as much expertise as, say, a dedicated Data Protection Officer (DPO). Even for organisations that employ a DPO, it makes sense to nurture and develop staff from within prior to the May 2018 deadline, if only to help mitigate the risk of said employees leaking customer data, storing it incorrectly, or otherwise inadvertently misusing it.

As part of your GDPR preparations, it makes sense for all staff to be aware of the GDPR, its implications, and what GDPR-compliance looks like compared to The Data Protection Act. Organisations will need to go into detail about what constitutes a breach from May 2018 onwards, as well as put in place policies about mobile-technology and data governance. It will also make sense to schedule regular, e.g. annual, refresher sessions in case anything changes and to really ensure compliance; and to arrange for new employees to undertake the same training as part of their induction.

How can VinciWorks Help?

We offer GDPR online training courses to bring your employees up to speed with the GDPR. All our courses are automatically updated and the amended versions made available to users should legislation change.

A quick summary of our most popular GDPR courses can be found below:

• Preparing for GDPR
  This course offers organisations the chance to learn how to prepare for the upcoming GDPR in time for May 2018 as well as informing them what they’ll need to do differently after this time. It also looks to answer any queries your employees may have about staying compliant after GDPR legislation comes into place.
• ‘Accountability’
  This course looks at the GDPR directive and the need for transparency within your organisation. Other areas covered include why the GDPR directive legislation is so important, how to demonstrate accountability and how to minimise the risk of a data breach.
• ‘Erasure: The Right to be Forgotten’
  This is a user-friendly microlearning course which takes five minutes to complete. It offers a focussed look at “The Right to be Forgotten” as it’s such a fundamental consideration of the upcoming GDPR legislation. After purchasing this micro course, your employees can expect to learn what responsibilities and obligations they have when receiving a request to erase personal data from others.

All our eLearning courses can be accessed and re-accessed as many times as you require to ensure compliance and, together with our full compliance suite of eLearning courses, form an ideal base for employee learning and development.