CENTRAL ALABAMA WATER: STRENGTHENING HIPAA COMPLIANCE AT CENTRAL ALABAMA WATER
Central Alabama Water implemented a comprehensive, organization-wide HIPAA compliance initiative to educate all 650 employees on the importance of protecting personal health information (PHI) and maintaining confidentiality across all business operations.
The training aimed to reinforce understanding of HIPAA regulations and employee responsibilities, strengthen data security and privacy awareness, achieve compliance with HIPAA training requirements, and foster a culture of respect for privacy and confidentiality throughout the organization.
Program Details
Central Alabama Water developed the training content in partnership with an external vendor specializing in compliance and privacy training. The vendor collaborated with Central Alabama Water’s HR department to tailor the material to the organization’s specific needs. Customization included Central Alabama Water-branded examples, practical case studies, and interactive scenarios to help employees connect HIPAA principles to their daily tasks.
Self-paced eLearning modules were developed in collaboration with the external vendor. Central Alabama Water distributed visual reminders through internal communications. The training was reinforced through monthly privacy and security reminders from HR. New hire onboarding also includes a mandatory HIPAA module. The organization employs random compliance audits and quizzes to maintain awareness and accountability.
Results
The HIPAA Training Initiative launched in June 2025. Within three weeks, 78 percent of employees had completed the training; by the six-week mark, 98 percent had successfully finished the program.
Since the training’s implementation, no HIPAA-related incidents or breaches have been reported, and internal compliance audits have confirmed that Central Alabama Water is fully aligned with HIPAA training requirements.
KPMG LLP: SKILLS-CENTRIC TALENT PROGRAM
Historically, professional services firms recruited and developed professionals with the assumption that everyone in a class had similar skill gaps and skill goals.
But today, KPMG LLP recognizes that both the business and talent landscapes have fundamentally changed, and the firm’s Skills-Centric Talent Program reflects that realization. Skills-centricity acknowledges that each learner brings their own unique set of skills and experience and has their own unique learning goals and needs.
KPMG’s skills-centric approach translates business demand into actionable skills data—data that flows consistently across the talent supply chain and employee lifecycle. It connects each professional with personalized learning focused on the specific skills most relevant to their unique profile and the work they aspire to do. It accelerates each professional’s path to proficiency and supports their success in meeting client needs and pursuing their own career goals.
Program Details
KPMG launched its Skills-Centric Talent Program with a wave of new initiatives that serve different populations but deliver similar bottom-line benefits to the firm:
- They increase the ROI of training time by personalizing skills development, helping each professional to more quickly close their own skill gaps and prepare to meet new client needs.
- They decrease the cost of recruiting additional professionals with specialized skills.
KPMG’s skills-centric curricula are customized. Most include formal Web-based training, often organized into asynchronous Learning Pathways. Some include an anchor in-person component; many also include informal coaching, guidance, and experiential learning. Examples include:
- RevUp is designed to rapidly upskill current Advisory professionals on new specialized skills so they can be staffed on client engagements. The firm identifies high-performing Advisory professionals with “adjacent” skills and offers them a path to proficiency in the specialized skill, including both formal training and opportunities to learn through experience, observation, and coaching. Professionals who complete these upskilling requirements—and whose mastery of the requisite skill is validated—are awarded a badge. They upload the badge to their profile in KPMG’s resource management system, where they then are identified to be staffed on new engagements.
- Skills-Centric Early Career Onboarding moved beyond “one-size-fits-all” intern training and instead offered KPMG’s newest professionals a personalized learning experience. Last summer, early in their internship, 1,325 interns were asked to complete a skills survey to help them identify their individual skill strengths and skill gaps. Based on their responses, interns were offered training customized to their needs.
Skills-Centric Audit Foundations revamped the curriculum for first-year Audit associates. Until recently, all new Audit associates were recent graduates of U.S. university programs, most with undergraduate degrees in accounting. Today, the backgrounds, education, and experience of new Audit associates are far more varied. A first-year class now includes global colleagues and experienced professionals, and their resumes feature a wider range of degrees earned and a more eclectic employment history. To better connect this diverse group of professionals with the training most relevant to them, KPMG deconstructed the Audit new associate curriculum into modules. New associates now have greater ability to choose the specific modules that match their proficiency level in a particular skill, building on their individual strengths and closing their individual skill gaps.
Future Forward, KPMG’s flagship in-person learning experience for internal-facing Business Process Group professionals, was redesigned last year to be more skills-centric. Learners now can choose from a list of topic options relevant to their responsibilities, proficiency, and development focus and can design their own experience.
MD Accelerator is a three-day skills-centric program designed to help Audit managing directors (senior leaders) develop skills they can use to drive sustained success for themselves, their communities, and KPMG. The program is designed to meet each managing director where they are in their career journey—newly promoted or experienced—and support their continuous development of high-priority skills.
Results
- By reskilling existing professionals instead of hiring new professionals with specialized skills, the Advisory RevUp program has saved the firm a significant amount of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding costs over the last two fiscal years.
- Skills-Centric Early Career Onboarding helped connect 1,300-plus interns last summer with learning that was relevant to their individual skills needs. Some 84.6 percent agreed that the approach helped them raise their personal proficiency in the areas of digital productivity and communication effectiveness. And nearly 85 percent agreed that this approach resulted in greater confidence in applying new skills to real-world challenges.
