With a new federal overtime law just months fromgoing into effect, companies apparently don’t feel the need totrain their staff about its ramifications — despite the fact thatit will affect more than 4 million workers’ employment status.

That’s what a survey conducted by NavexGlobal, an ethics and compliance consulting firm based inOswego, Oregon, found when it polled employer representatives abouttheir training plans. Of all the major training topic categories —discrimination, bullying, harassment, Americans with DisabilitiesAct — the new wage and hour rules came in dead last inimportance.

As reported by the Society for Human ResourceManagement, the new wage and hour rules that kick inon Dec. 1 will raise the cap on who gets overtime pay, and couldshift as many as 4.2 million employees from exempt to nonexemptstatus.

Navex wanted to find out how concerned employers were aboutgetting the shift right, compared to their priorities for othertraining topics. But instead of learning that employers werescurrying to create training sessions to inform staff on the newrules, the results showed that most employers are still focused onsuch old training warhorses as harassment and discrimination —important topics to be sure, but certainly familiar to most bynow.

Not only did the wage and hour changes come in last, with just29 percent saying they would train in the next two to three years,but less than half said they would offer such training more thanonce a year once they start training. The majority said they wouldeither offer it annually or less frequently.

Navex said it believes this lack of emphasis on wage and hourrule training will likely come back to haunt companies ascompliance officers begin to evaluate organizations for meeting thenew standards.

Where is the training focus? This is what 644 ethics andcompliance officers had to say when asked which areas would besubject of training programs in the next two to three years:

• Workplace harassment: 76 percent.

• Discrimination: 63 percent.

• Abusive conduct and bullying: 53 percent.

• Workplace violence: 51 percent.

• Diversity and inclusion: 50 percent.

• Americans with Disabilities Act reasonable accommodations: 31percent.

Part of the explanation for this lack of attention to the newrules could be that a high percentage of company training programsare well south of the cutting edge. When asked to describe theirprograms as either “advanced/mature” or “basic/reactive,” 40percent chose the latter descriptor.