National law firm, DWF, has launched an online training package to help recruitment agencies and businesses using temporary staff comply with the new Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), which came into force on 1st October 2011.

DWF’s AWR interactive eLearning toolkit has been designed to provide an informative guide to those dealing with temporary staff, ensuring they have a clear understanding of the new Regulations and what they mean for their businesses and their workers. The toolkit includes an overview of rights and obligations under the Regulations, case studies, multiple choice questions and top tips all delivered to the user’s desktop.

The eLearning AWR toolkit can be easily incorporated into a business’ existing training provision, such as an induction programme, to ensure consistent compliance messaging is received across the entire business.

Emma Harvey, Head of the Recruitment Sector Group at DWF, said: “There are over 1.4 million temporary workers in the UK who will be affected by the new Regulations, and every business, whether public or private, needs to ensure that it complies with the law. The new measures are expected to increase the cost of hiring a temporary worker by an average of 10 per cent but failure to meet the new requirements could be far more expensive with anti avoidance fines costing up to £5,000 per worker. Margins are already tight and we feel our eLearning AWR toolkit provides businesses with a simple, quick and cost effective way of achieving compliance.”

The eLearning toolkit has been designed by DWF’s Recruitment Group, ensuring that the message, content and user experience are all correctly positioned for both recruitment agencies and end user businesses.

Earlier this year, DWF’s employment and pensions team was recognised as one of the best in the country at The Lawyer Awards and has been shortlisted for commercial team of the year at the British Legal Awards 2011.