Hi Alyssa,
Your question resonates with me in a big way. I've been struggling with this since Day 1 and spending way too much time trying to figure it out.
The best answer is to use a platform that will track the times logged in and logged out, but that's not always possible, especially if a chapter doesn't have the funds to purchase a platform with that capability.
Zoom meetings for $150/year and 100 participants does NOT offer that capability. It will only give a report of who registered, but not the time in and out.
For smaller chapters, someone has been taking attendance a few minutes into the program, and a few minutes before the program ends, and trying to notice if anyone leaves very early.
With larger events, it's pretty much impossible to track manually. Early on, I inquired about this to HRCI and SHRM and was told by both organizations that it is our obligation to track attendance.
Further, we are not supposed to issue credit numbers to anyone who didn't attend the whole event.
It got to be too complicated: What if someone leaves 15 minutes early, for example?
Then I noticed that in SHRM's own webinars, the code is given 10 minutes or so before the end of the event. So despite the official comment that the participant must attend the "whole" event, it is apparently not necessary for people to stay until the bitter end.
Thinking back to when we had in-person meetings, if someone snuck out 15 minutes, early, we certainly did not refuse them the certificate.
Also, if the meetings are recorded, the attendee who didn't participate live could certainly watch after the fact and ask for credits, and how would we know that they stayed on for the whole thing? Or that they were engaged for the whole thing.
After driving myself nuts for a few months, I've decided that we can only do so much, and the onus for honesty lies with the participant. The re-cert codes are displayed for our events as one of the last slides in the presentation.
If someone asks for the code after the event, I check our attendance records. If they didn't attend, I ask them if they viewed the recording at a later date. Then I hit another snag when an attendee asked for the certificate, but they didn't attend.
Come to find out, two people from the same company attended and watched from the same screen, but only one attendee logged in; the person who was asking for the certificate wasn't showing as an attendee.
So even the attendance records might not show the full story!
Bottom line: Unless there is some compelling evidence otherwise, give them the re-cert numbers!
I hope by stating all the angst that I went through I will prevent someone else from going through this like I did.
Andy
Andy Thiede, SPHR, SHRM-SCP
Director, Chapter Operations
HRACC
860-202-8107