From Overwhelmed to Optimized: How Full Circle Scaled Training and Compliance to Support Rapid Growth

As Full Circle scaled from 60 to 250+ employees and experienced changes in system ownership, its existing training and compliance structure no longer reflected the organization’s needs. What had worked for a smaller team became increasingly difficult to manage at scale. Training assignments ballooned to 40+ hours annually, delivered all at once, overwhelming staff and reducing engagement. Over time, multiple stakeholders had made updates to the system, and changes in ownership made it difficult to maintain a consistent governance approach. Managers also lacked access to team-level performance data, forcing them to rely on manual reporting and limiting their ability to enforce accountability.

“We had people logging in and seeing 50+ assignments at once. It was overwhelming,” said Chris Pawelski, CEO of Full Circle.

This exposed critical gaps in Full Circle’s training infrastructure, making leadership recognize that without a scalable system and clear processes, they risked inefficiencies, compliance issues, and diminished staff effectiveness.

The search and solution

Full Circle recognized it needed expert guidance to optimize and scale an existing system that had evolved with the organization over time.

“The biggest change has been the backend infrastructure — reporting, hierarchy, and giving managers the tools to lead their teams effectively,” said Pawelski.

So, it expanded its use of Relias by engaging its Solution Administration services. The Full Circle team partnered with Relias subject matter experts to rebuild training, compliance and reporting structures, and policy management. The project focused on simplification, structure, and usability for the long term.

Relias provided both technical expertise and behavioral health best practices to guide the transformation.

This allowed Full Circle to:

• Rebuild the organizational hierarchy to align with reporting needs and enable manager-level accountability
• Consolidate and streamline training plans to under 5 hours per category
• Introduce a monthly training cadence to reduce overwhelm and improve completion rates
• Eliminate redundant content and optimize course assignments
• Enable manager-level reporting and visibility so leaders could monitor and act on team performance
• Implement more organized system for policy reporting and SOP tracking

The ongoing collaboration with Relias experts helped Pawelski and his team, like Katie Soto, Digital Operations Coordinator, to rethink and rebuild their entire training approach.

“Having someone who understands what it’s like for our people in the site really pushed forward our mission,” said Soto.

This collaboration was especially impactful, according to Soto, because Relias brought industry-specific insight into what works at their site level, and provided practical recommendations that directly improved efficiency.

The results

Full Circle transformed its training and policy program from a fragmented burden into a structured system that actively supports engagement, audit readiness, and accountability. Rather than seeing training and compliance as a box to check, the entire organization now embraces what the Relias platform can do for them.

This has resulted in:

• Real-time reporting for 30+ managers, giving them the ability to resolve compliance issues within a week
• Employees reengaging with the platform with higher rates than previous years
• Improved compliance rates across teams (90%+)
• Reduced training overload with a manageable monthly cadence
• Increased leadership confidence in audit readiness
• Freed up staff time to focus on client care

“Now, it’s structured, manageable, and people are actually engaging with it,” said Pawelski.

With improved visibility and accountability, Full Circle is now positioned to achieve high
compliance rates ahead of its next Joint Commission audit, with leadership projecting
performance in the high 90% range. Leadership also highlighted the importance of policy attestation and documentation — not just for compliance, but as critical safeguards in the event of audits or legal scrutiny.

“I feel a lot better going into our next audit, from a training and policy attestation standpoint,” said Pawelski.”

Full Circle plans to build on this foundation by driving toward near-100% compliance ahead of upcoming audits and continuing to refine training programs to support staff efficiency, compliance consistency, and long-term organizational stability.