Welcome Liz - it's great to have you here in the forums!

There are a couple of ways to manage mandatory courses.  Which approach you go with really depends on your access, notification and reporting requirements. 

You could create the course as a standard course and enrol all staff into it via a dynamic audience.  This course would show in a learner's Current Learning block and Record of Learning under courses and they could access via a single click.  You could report on course completion and track individual's progress within the course itself.

For more information about Audiences, please see our help documentation or the Academy course on Audiences.

If you create the course as a single course program (and again enrol via dynamic audience) this course would show under the program name (when expanded) under the Current Learning block and will display in the Record of Learning under Programs.  Learners would open the program and then the course to access.  Using a program will allow you to create a range of automated, personalised messages to alert users to their enrolment and (relative) due date.  You could report on completions by creating a custom report (and sharing with others if required) or via the Completions tab within the Program editing area.

Form more information about Programs, please see our help documentation or the Academy course on Programs.

Which ever option you decide to go with, I'd suggest you use a Feature Links block on the front page or main learner dashboard to highlight the course/program and the users' progress.

I hope this helps!

Meredith