HR Training Center

HR Training Center (HRTrainingCenter.com) is a catalog of human resources training for HR professionals, payroll administrators, managers, business owners and compliance specialists. It sells live seminars, live and on-demand webinars, self-paced online courses and certification programs, most of them built around employment law and the compliance work an HR department carries day to day. The site says the company has been in business since 1994 and has trained staff at thousands of companies, and its footer gives an office address in Alpharetta, Georgia. HR Training Center is one of several TrainingCenter websites, each serving one profession; the About page names sister sites for payroll, safety, accounting, banking, insurance, financial services, real estate and mortgage professionals. This is a place to take training, not a tool for building and hosting your own courses.

What the catalog covers

The home page names the core subjects: human resources management, payroll administration, FMLA and ADA compliance, COBRA administration, leave management, workplace investigations, employee benefits administration, wage and hour compliance, workers' compensation, employment law, and HR generalist and payroll certification programs. A topic directory goes further. Under HR compliance it lists cafeteria plans, FLSA, HIPAA, labor law, I-9 and E-Verify training, internal investigations and PWFA. Under HR management it lists worker classification, audits, conflict resolution, employee handbooks, job descriptions, records management, strategic planning and supervision. The payroll section runs from paycheck fundamentals to multi-state taxation, garnishments, fringe benefits, travel pay, work visas, executive taxation, unclaimed paychecks and payroll audits. There are also safety courses (OSHA, HazMat, HazWoper, lockout tagout) and a professional development shelf with leadership, interpersonal skills, project management, business writing, DiSC assessments, sales training and QuickBooks training, and the subject search includes PHR and SPHR exam prep.

Retirement plans get their own track. The 401(k) Training & Certification Program covers eligibility and coverage, plan design and documentation, investments, communication and enrollment, vesting, nondiscrimination rules, top-heavy plans, distributions, taxation, plan expenses, reporting, fiduciary responsibility, amendments, terminations and plan mergers. Separate certification programs cover defined benefit plans (including the role of the actuary and the PBGC), cash balance plans, participant loans under qualified and 403(b) plans, spousal rights and consent, and required minimum distributions. The retirement page says the material includes updates for the SECURE Act and 2024 rule changes, and it mentions a "Certified 401k Administrator" designation. The courses are pitched both at in-house HR staff and at third party administrators (TPAs) training their own people.

The immigration compliance page shows how specific a single course gets. Its I-9 material walks through the 10 essential steps to fill out the revised form, which documents are acceptable under Lists A, B and C, whether to copy supporting documents, how far an employer must go in judging whether a document is genuine, where and how long to keep I-9s, how to dispose of them, re-verification, internal audits and going paperless with electronic I-9 systems. Further objectives cover E-Verify, returning workers, automatically extended employment authorization documents, writing job ads without inviting citizenship-based discrimination claims, and preparing for an ICE audit.

Formats and how a course works

Seminars are instructor-led and run either in person or by video conference; the FAQ says both versions contain the same training and differ only in where you sit. Its most popular seminar titles are HR Generalists, the Certificate Program For FMLA and ADA Compliance, Advanced Issues In Leave Management, and Workplace Investigations. The FMLA and ADA seminar covers reasonable accommodations, intermittent leave and return to work through lecture, classroom discussion and interactive exercises, and attendees receive a certificate "suitable for framing". For someone new to HR, the FAQ points to the HR Generalists Certificate Program, which spans the field from recruitment to compliance to performance management.

Webinars take one specialty topic at a time, such as garnishments, preventing FMLA abuse, recordkeeping or COBRA issues, and each can be attended live or bought as an on-demand recording.

The self-paced online courses follow an instructional design structure. Each lesson opens with a "Lesson Goals" page naming the two or three key points, then teaches the material "in English, not legalese" with tips, examples and procedural recommendations, and closes with multiple-choice quizzes that put the learner in a situation an administrator would have to handle. The retirement page adds that the quizzes come with the answer rationale. The FAQ names FMLA, ADA, COBRA, leave management, workers' comp and payroll as the most popular online courses.

Employers can also bring a seminar to their own office. The FAQ says the company does this for a number of organizations each year and that, depending on how many employees are trained, the price can come down by up to 50% off the regular price. Separate group discounts for training several employees are worked out automatically when you order, or quoted by phone.

Prices, access and credits

Online courses are sold as annual subscriptions. The FAQ says a purchase gives access to the training materials for a full year, with updates sent whenever the laws change, and that annual renewals are $99. The immigration page shows individual prices: Payroll Processing Of International Visas and IRS Rules For Inpat & Expat Payroll are $249.00 each, and the Employment Labor Law Audit (ELLA), listed among books and other training resources, is $350.00.

The site says most of its courses offer SHRM and HRCI recertification credits. Webinars and audio conferences qualify for 1.5 credit hours, and seminars typically qualify for 18 SHRM or HRCI credits; the seminar FAQ puts it as 18 or more for most titles. Certification programs end in a course exam, and a score of 85 or higher earns the certification. The exam is optional and included with the program at no extra charge, so someone who only wants the training does not have to test.

The FAQ also describes work with TPAs. It says it trains third party administrators for COBRA and other compliance work, names John Hancock, Liberty Mutual, Fidelity and several Blue Cross Blue Shield chapters among firms whose administrators it has trained, and offers "Certified TPA" seals for qualifying organizations through HRcertification.com, which it calls its sister organization.

Instructors, reviews and support

The site describes its trainers as seasoned HR professionals and legal experts and says they receive nearly perfect 5 out of 5 ratings on student reviews. The About page publishes course ratings: HR Generalist at 4.87 from 892 reviews, FMLA & ADA at 4.88 from 443 reviews, and Internal Investigations at 4.88 from 730 reviews. One review there, from Diane Brannen, reads: "Natalie Ivey was one of the most engaging speakers I have ever had at a conference." Others mention small class sizes, plenty of examples and room to ask questions.

The About page also lists organizations it says use it for training, among them Apple, Amazon, ADP, Bank of America, FedEx, Home Depot, Microsoft, Paychex and Wells Fargo. Questions and ordering help go to a support phone line and an email address shown on every page. Alongside the paid courses the site publishes free reference material: state HR law summaries, glossaries, compliance checklists, FAQs by topic and a blog.

Who it suits

The site's own list of intended learners covers HR managers, generalists and coordinators, payroll professionals, benefits administrators, office and operations managers, business owners, compliance professionals and employee relations specialists. It fits best for people who must keep SHRM or HRCI credentials current and want credits from practical compliance material, for payroll and benefits staff who handle the regulatory detail, and for small employers where an office manager carries HR duties without a specialist. Someone new to the field has a clear starting point in the HR Generalists Certificate Program, and a company with a group to train can bring a seminar on-site for the volume discount. Retirement plan administrators and TPA staff get an unusually deep set of plan-specific certification programs.

Two caveats are worth weighing. The compliance material centers on US rules such as FMLA, ADA, COBRA, ERISA and I-9 requirements, so it is most useful to people working under US employment law. And online access runs for one year at a time, so keeping a course after that means paying the renewal, though that renewal is also how updates arrive when the law changes.