The ERI Economic Research Institute Distance Learning Center (DLC) is a valuable resource for compensation and total rewards development. Whether it is used for personal growth, part of a recertification program, or to develop a Human Resources team member, the online DLC program has many resources and programs to accomplish the task. Here are some of the highlights of ERI’s Distance Learning Center with details provided below:
- Complimentary Self-Study Online Courses
- Online Professional Certification Program*
- Compensation Analyst Credential (CAC)
- Compensation Committee Certification (CCC)
- Recertification and Continuing Education Professional Credits*
- Professional Education Webinars*
- Compensation Basics: Job Analysis, Descriptions & Evaluations
- Analyzing & Using Salary Survey Data
- Designing Pay Structures
- Basic Statistics for Compensation
- ERI Assessor Series Training
- Compensation Textbook
- Business Glossary
- For the Study of Compensation, Total Rewards, Work, Occupations, Industrial Psychology, and/or Management)**
* Nominal fee
** Also available for University/College Computer Laboratories and Career Centers
Complimentary Self-Study Online Courses
Thirty-six complimentary courses are an excellent resource for the development of Compensation and Human Resources staff members.
Course titles include the following:
| Total Rewards Foundation | Salary Structures |
| 09 Basic Quantitative Methods | 82 Creating a Market Competitive Salary Structure |
| 71 Environments of Compensation & Benefits Administration | 83 Designing a Geographic Salary Structure |
| 15 Federal Employment Laws That Impact Compensation & Benefits | 19 Quantitative Methods Used in Salary Administration |
| 03 New Economy Total Rewards | 49 Regression Analysis Used in Salary Administration |
| 02 Online Total Rewards Administration | 81 Salary Structures and Pay Delivery |
| Job Analysis, Descriptions & Evaluations | Salary Administration |
| 03 Analyzing Salary Surveys | 32 Eliminating the Gender Pay Gap |
| 58 Comparing the DOT, O*NET and eDOT | 04 Organization Salary Determinations |
| 33 Job Analysis and Job Descriptions | 77 Pay for Performance |
| 34 Using Job Evaluation in Your Organization | 78 Salary Increase Planning |
| Global Compensation | Employee Benefits |
| 92 Expatriate Compensation | 53 Employee Benefit Strategies |
| 93 Global Mobility & Relocation | 50 Employee Life & Disability Insurance |
| 84 Labor Market Trends: U.S. vs. Europe | 57 Relocating an Employee Within the United States |
| 91 Multiple Country Compensation Programs | 74 Trends in Retirement Plans |
| Variable Pay | Executive Compensation |
| 75 Creating a Variable Pay Plan | 42 Accumulated Earnings & Deferred Compensation |
| 72 Nonprofit Variable Pay | 22 Black Scholes Valuations |
| 76 Sales Compensation & Expense Allowances | 26 Compensation Committees: Framework for Executive Compensation Alignment |
| 20 The Basics of Employee Stock Option Plans | 21 Compensation for Business Leaders |
| 18 Intermediate Sanctions | |
| 12 IRS Reasonable Executive Compensation |
An optional final examination is available at the end of each course for a nominal fee. Upon successfully passing the final exam, the participant becomes eligible for recertification and continuing education professional credits.
Online Professional Certification Program
ERI DLC offers two credential programs:
Compensation Analyst Credential (CAC)
ERI Distance Learning Center’s Compensation Analyst Credential (CAC) designation is a convenient way to earn a professional credential while learning the fundamentals of this discipline. This online credential provides instruction on the basics of compensation planning, design, and administration. By earning a CAC, you will prove to employers that you have demonstrated expertise in the field of compensation. Employers will know that you have received high-quality training in the most fundamental areas of compensation. The CAC is a reasonable fee-based program that can be obtained by successfully passing 12 self-paced, online courses with final exams, equal to approximately a 20-hour time commitment.
Compensation Committee Certification (CCC)
ERI Distance Learning Center’s Compensation Committee Certification (CCC) is a valuable series of courses to gain the knowledge required to serve on a Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors for an organization. Individuals asked to serve on the boards of for-profit and non-profit organizations are responsible for overseeing these organizations’ executive pay packages. Board members who have earned a Compensation Committee Certification (CCC) will feel more comfortable in making executive compensation decisions because they have enhanced their knowledge of these important pay decisions.
Under intermediate sanctions, board members of tax-exempt organizations who make decisions about executive compensation are required to be knowledgeable about compensation in order to make informed decisions about reasonable compensation. Sarbanes-Oxley also requires board members of for-profit companies to be knowledgeable about compensation in making decisions about executive compensation.
The Compensation Committee Certification courses cover the following issues:
- Compliance with compensation and benefits laws and regulations
- Board member selection and service
- Avoidance of intermediate sanctions on tax-exempt organizations’ executive compensation
- Determination of reasonable executive compensation in for-profit companies
This certification can be completed at an individual board member’s own pace from the convenience of the workplace. The CCC is a reasonable fee-based program that can be obtained by successfully passing 10 self-paced, online courses with final exams, equal to approximately a 20-hour time commitment.
Recertification and Continuing Education Professional Credits
Continuing education professional credits are available by successfully completing eligible fee-based DLC courses and final exams, as well as webinars. We offer HRCI, SHRM, and WorldatWork recertification credits for self-paced courses and webinars, as well as NASBA continuing education credits for self-paced courses. Self-paced courses are available in bundles of up to 60 credits.
The ERI Distance Learning Center is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website: https://www.nasbaregistry.org/
Professional Education Webinars
Professional education webinars (each 90 minutes in length) are conducted throughout the year to provide development in compensation planning, design, and development. Here are a few of our most popular webinars:
Compensation Basics: Job Analysis, Descriptions & Evaluation
This is a basic level course intended for those new to
compensation. It examines methods and processes essential for compensation
practitioners, such as job analysis, job documentation, and job evaluation.
Several analysis techniques will be discussed that may be used to obtain
important and relevant information about each distinct role performed within an
organization for appropriate documentation. Guidelines for conducting a job
analysis interview will be provided, and suggestions will be given for
designing an effective job analysis questionnaire.
Analyzing & Using Salary Surveys
This is a basic level course intended for those new to compensation. This webinar will discuss practical guidelines that may be used for identifying, selecting, analyzing, and using market data to complete essential tasks in determining external competitiveness and establishing a competitive market-based pay program. The importance of communicating the compensation program effectively will also be discussed, and practical tips will be provided to support you in delivering a transparent message to your employees so that they may understand and, ultimately, buy into the program.
Designing Pay Structures
This is an intermediate level course for those with a working knowledge of compensation. It is not intended for the advanced practitioner. In this webinar, you will follow a detailed case study to learn how to design and deliver a competitive, market-priced pay structure with salary grades. Each participant also receives a Microsoft Excel Workbook including these formulas, tables, reports, charts and, graphs presented in the webinar:
| External Market Summary Basic Math Approach Excel Formula Approach | Straight-Line Formula Approach Curved-Line Formula Approach Compa-ratio Report and more |
Basic Statistics for Compensation
This webinar is an introduction to basic research and statistical concepts used in compensation and will cover the steps of data analysis, types of variables, scales of measurement, measures of center and spread, correlation, and regression. There will be discussion and examples for performing calculations used in compensation, demonstrated using Microsoft Excel.
ERI Assessor Series Training
Customer training webinars (60-minutes in length) are conducted throughout the year, providing an orientation and product overview of ERI’s Assessor Series. The Assessors are compiled from thousands of salary surveys, including surveys we conduct, surveys purchased from other organizations, and reports from publicly traded organizations. The interactive software and databases are updated quarterly and include consensus results from the most reliable survey sources available. The ERI Assessor Series includes the following products:
- Salary Assessor
- Executive Compensation Assessor
- Geographic Assessor
- Relocation Assessor
- Nonprofit Comparables Assessor
- Occupational Assessor
Compensation Textbook
ERI’s online compensation textbook is available free of charge to HR professionals and college students. This widely-used HR textbook is updated continuously so that, in combination with ERI Distance Learning Center online Human Resources courses, it provides the most timely compensation and benefits education available.
Business Glossary
Find business definitions for over 2,000 compensation and benefits terms in the Distance Learning Center online business glossary. This free online dictionary lets you quickly search for a business term within the extensive dictionary entries. In addition, each Distance Learning Center online business course provides an index that lists HR terms used throughout the course. This index will link you to the business glossary for definitions and show you where the HR term appears in other DLC e-learning material.
University/College Instructor Online Course Materials
ERI provides complimentary course materials and web access services to university and college instructors who teach in the field of work (occupations, compensation, total rewards, human resources, work, industrial psychology, and/or management).
Students can learn from these “real world” tools used daily by professionals:
- All 36 ERI Distance Learning Center self-study courses are FREE. This offer does not include our instructor-led webinars. Students work through an assigned online course, page by page, answering “advancing” questions. The last page contains an email template to transmit back to the instructor with notice of a student’s completion of the assignment. These courses make excellent lab and homework assignments!
- For professors and instructors at nonprofit universities and colleges, ERI provides a FREE subscription to its Consultant Assessor Series (for the time period of the syllabus’ class). A reasonable payment is required if CAS is used outside the classroom in the instructor’s research or consulting; receipt of this payment will also extend the subscription period to the normal 12 months. ERI research data is used by thousands of consultants, the IRS, State AG Offices, etc.
- Each student will be allowed to score (PDF & online) job analyses and receive created PAQ reports FREE. An instructor’s account site will show feedback: the number of jobs scored by each student and reports generated.
- These same FREE offers are available for computer labs (used at Cornell University since 1989) and career centers. In the career center, students would be able to check salaries for different jobs in various parts of the country and check cost-of-living data.
ERI has supported the training of the next generation of HR professionals since 1974. We are one of the only firms in America (including state and federal agencies) that collects specific work characteristics of occupations, counts specific jobs, and assists the disabled or those new to the workplace with information about specific jobs (governments today report only on job families).
Check out ERI’s Distance Learning Center today. It is an excellent resource for personal and staff development in compensation and total rewards development. Whether it is used for personal growth, part of a recertification program, a college/university program, or to develop a Human Resources team member, the online DLC program has a breadth of resources and programs to accomplish your needs.
