Notes and news

Industrial and Commercial Training

ISSN: 0019-7858

Article publication date: 6 June 2016

320

Citation

Pollitt, D. (2016), "Notes and news", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 48 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-03-2016-0016

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Notes and news

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 48, Issue 5.

Farmfoods harvests gold

An online induction program that not only provides training for new employees but also helps to identify the brightest potential talent has won gold at the Learning Awards.

Farmfoods and e-learning provider Sponge UK won on-boarding program of the year at the awards scheme run by the Learning and Performance Institute.

Farmfoods, the frozen-food specialist, employs more than 4,000 people and trades from over 330 stores across Britain.

The program consists of e-learning modules incorporating relevant work scenarios and guidance, supported by on-the-job training and printed workbooks, as part of a blended approach.

Some 60 percent of learners said they chose to complete additional e-learning above what was required for their role, allowing Farmfoods to spot employees who had the motivation and potential to progress.

Around 80 percent of employees said they planned to remain at Farmfoods for at least the next year after completing the e-learning.

The program was created using the Adapt multi-device responsive framework so employees can gain access to the training on a smart-phone or tablet. The modules are hosted on Sponge UK’s Launch and Learn learning-management system (LMS), which enables managers to see progress and analyze talent-identification data quickly and easily.

Louise Pasterfield, Managing Director of Sponge UK, said: “This project proves that when learning technologies are used imaginatively and strategically they can deliver far-reaching business benefits. There is a lot that other organizations could learn from Farmfoods’ innovative approach to induction, where training and talent management are cleverly combined in one effective program.”

Ronnie Morgan, head of training and development at Farmfoods, said: “We set out to create something engaging, modern and useful and we are delighted that the result has achieved recognition by winning gold at these awards.”

Training system powers integration at Hinkley point C

Registration, training delivery and assessment have been streamlined at one of the UK’s biggest construction sites.

All contractors at the Hinkley Point C nuclear generator need to pass induction training before being allowed on site. With more than 25,000 contractors expected, generator operator EDF wanted an integrated system for registration, training delivery and assessment.

Classroom delegates use iTouch handsets to gain access to learning content in their native language. The facilitator has a live dashboard tablet app from which to monitor progress and intervene when required.

At the end of a course the results are submitted to the existing systems. Delegates who have passed are automatically issued with passes and permission to enter the construction site.

The system design integrates several processes and saves significant time and resources, allowing the contractor to be issued with a site pass quicker, in addition to implementing important tools to support an effective audit trail for EDF.

ATS Multimedia produced audio content in multiple languages, designer-user interfaces for the delegate and trainer apps, and developed the back-end content-management system that integrated with existing systems.

Hungarian telecommunications firm makes the right connections

A new LMS has helped a major telecommunications company to create customized learning materials and integrate “off-the-shelf” materials purchased externally.

UPC is an important provider of digital cable television, broadband and telephone in Hungary, with around 3,000 staff. The company wanted to find a LMS that would help it to: create learning plans based on roles and departments; integrate learning with performance management; manage face-to-face training; and notify and remind learners about their training.

In the first year after the Totara LMS was introduced almost 200 training courses were made available. Training became more flexible and significant savings were made in travel-related training costs.

The LMS helped the company to manage online and face-to-face classroom learning and personalize learner-development plans based on role and department. Learners receive automated notifications about their training. Each employee’s learning plans and progress can be seen by both the learner and his or her manager.

The Next Step for graduate recruits

A recruitment business focussing on large-enterprise technology has launched a graduate training academy to support its graduate recruitment strategy.

Next Ventures has recently taken on six graduates as recruitment consultants. They are now members of its academy, The Next Step. A further ten are at qualifying stage in the recruitment process.

Each academy member is a recent graduate with attributes including determination and ambition.

The Next Step academy’s courses are designed to help graduates to improve their sales and business-development skills while providing a learning platform in recruitment to support their development into 360-degree recruitment consultants. Training is delivered by the group’s head of learning and development, who has more than eight years’ experience in delivering graduate-focussed courses for enterprise technology recruitment businesses.

“We are delighted at the launch of our graduate academy following the first phase of our recruitment drive and are excited at the caliber and ambition of our successful candidates. We are also thrilled at the high volume of prospective candidates currently in the process of becoming members,” explained Darren Rosenfeld, co-founder of Next Ventures. “This not only meets our short-term objectives but provides assurance of the future growth of Next Ventures.”

The Next Step is to be implemented in Next Ventures’ international subsidiaries in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Brazil and New York, USA.

Air France course completions soar

Air France has seen a doubling of successful course completions among pilots following the introduction of an aviation-English language course that uses online live tutors in a virtual-classroom world with virtual characters.

The course, which helped to raise successful completions from 42 to 82 percent, has won the Learning and Performance Institute learning-technology gold award for Air France and its partner, Immerse Learning.

The judges commented: “By creating an advanced virtual world that would contextualize the content, and combining it with live online mentoring and continuous assessment, Immerse created a solution that improved on the classroom experience and delivered a robust environment to deliver language training on a worldwide basis.”

Ronan Cornelis, senior training manager at Air France, said: “We selected Immerse because of the compelling nature of the product’s virtual environment, the range of platform functionality and its user friendliness. But we also felt its ‘wow’ factor would create a positive feeling in pilots when they enter the environment for first time, making them more confident about the learning experience. We think that impression has now been borne out both from the fantastic results for course completions and the validation of the gold award.”

Transport for London makes it a hat-trick

Transport for London and learning provider Kallidus won gold at the Learning Awards for their development of immersive e-learning content which is supporting London Underground through its business-transformation program.

The judges were impressed by “the shared vision and business purpose” and “highly creative e-learning enriched with strong gamification elements and inventive use of video.” They also praised the program for being “clearly designed to meet the needs of a highly diverse audience.”

The provision of iPads to non-office-based staff to enable them to use the program offline and online, thereby addressing a lack of connectivity in the Underground, was deemed to be “both pragmatic and far-sighted.”

Rob Caul, Kallidus chief executive, said: “We are delighted to have scored a hat-trick of awards with Transport for London, as this initiative also picked up gold for best use of blended learning and bronze for best e-learning project at the E-Learning Awards a few months ago.”

Edwardian’s imperial connection

Edwardian Hotels London will train more than 250 employees as part of a ten-year development program.

The hospitality group will work with Imperial College London’s executive-education team and join the Imperial Business Partners program, which brings together business leaders and academics to exchange learning and insights.

A development program for senior managers, heads of department and future leaders has been designed so learning can be shared widely in teams.

Paul Mansi, Chief Operating Officer from Edwardian Hotels London, said: “This program will not only help our employees to uphold the quality of service our guests expect but also evolve our existing training and take day-to-day operational thinking to another level. Imperial College London is known for encouraging innovative thinking as well as academic excellence. To be able to commit to such a long-term relationship is exciting for our existing staff and those who will join us in future.”

Professor G. Anandalingam, Dean of Imperial College Business School, commented: “We hope this alliance will provide deeper insights into the challenges facing hotel executives and look forward to working closely together to create an executive-education program that draws on our approach for ‘real-world’ learning that meets the needs of professionals at all stages of their careers.”

Topics covered in the first course of the program include: the future of technology and its likely implications for life; work and leisure in a modern metropolis; personal and organizational leadership; and a design-led approach to business strategy and customer service. Participants will also be able to use Imperial’s laboratory-based learning that encourages people to come up with new ways of thinking and working.

Pet supplier’s diet of learning

A provider of pet supplies in Europe has implemented a new system to advance learning and development among its 10,000 employees across 12 European countries in 1,400 stores.

Fressnapf’s LMS ensures that employees receive continuous training and education so they can better understand the needs of pets and their owners.

It chose Saba’s mailto:Learning@Work to facilitate consistent training, social collaboration and knowledge transfer between employees, while providing courses that are language specific to each country’s needs.

“We were looking for a modern system that promoted a culture of learning and collaboration,” said Kathrin Sommer, the head of continuing professional development at the Fressnapf Academy. “Saba Cloud enables employees at all our locations to develop their expertise through robust and collaborative training and education. I am happy to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Fressnapf Academy with new and handy opportunities to push learning culture and activities.”

Saba’s intelligent talent-management platform uses real time insight and predictive and prescriptive analytics to continually deliver personalized recommendations on courses.

Hospital staff learn a healthier attitude to e-mail

Hospital managers are saving time and working more effectively under pressure following a 90-minute course on how to manage e-mail.

With more than 200 e-mails received per head per day, the Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Foundation Trust service managers’ inboxes were filling fast. They have saved on average 31.1 minutes a day and have shown a 13 percent improvement in their ability to work effectively under pressure, following the course.

The trust subscribed to the course, by Emailogic, after Staynton Brown, associate director of equality and human rights at Guy’s and St Thomas’s, asked senior managers what they could do to reduce bureaucracy.

“They all said that we needed to change the organization’s behavior around e-mail, especially to reduce the traffic,” explained Staynton Brown. “The e-mail productivity training has had a significant, positive impact on managers’ performance and productivity. Fewer interruptions and reduced stress also lead to better decisions and increases their ability to meet the goals of the trust. Ultimately, better decisions and less stress will result in better care for patients.”

The time savings equate to 74 additional posts and estimated savings in staff time worth £2.2 million a year, based on 1,000 staff completing the training. Equally importantly, people who attended the training reported improved well-being and performance.

Game training motivates staff at Boots

Boots, one of the UK’s main pharmacists and beauty-product retailers, introduced an e-learning game to improve the product knowledge of its retail staff. The move increased the reach of the training by 200 percent and completion rates by 50 percent.

Every year in November and December Boots delivers training to distribute knowledge to over 45,000 users in 2,500-plus stores, including temporary Christmas staff, about Christmas offers, products and services.

Historically this training had consisted of a standard 20 minute e-learning module, but with the high volume of new offers and products it receives at Christmas, Boots decided it was time to try something different in order to refresh its training approach, encouraging excitement and generating emotional responses from their learners.

Having already worked with e-learning provider Mind Click, Boots entrusted the company “to create something wildly different from our previous training delivery,” said Steven Evans, retail learning academy manager at Boots.

Boots’ retail stores and colleagues naturally compete with each other in terms of sales and store successes, so Mind Click adopted internal store leader boards of the game scores. This helped to promote healthy competition and collaboration among staff, as well as encouraging learners to repeat the game more than once, increasing their knowledge and score while showing what is possible with perseverance.

The employees at Boots began to find that learning was an enjoyable experience and began willingly to opt into training.

Steven Evans said: “Gamification brought an element of fun that was lacking in our previous learning and development. We wanted people to be excited about the breadth of new products at Christmas and feel differently about the learning we offered around those products, and the game really did that.”

When beginning the game, learners select a Christmas-themed avatar and their store location in order to start; then they make their way around the board using a die to unlock ten miniature challenges.

A suite of ten unique, gamified e-learning modules was created to highlight some of the key products, promotions and services that Boots was offering around Christmas.

After each mini e-learning challenge learners are awarded a blue or gray star for their efforts, with gray suggesting that particular module must be taken again. Each star is worth a certain amount of gems, with the aim of the game to collect as many gems as possible throughout the 20 minute experience. This incentivises users to repeat the game more than once, increasing their knowledge and beating their high score. Each learner’s score was also recorded on an internal store leader board to promote natural competition among other employees.

For the Christmas 2015 season, when the game was launched, Boots saw an increase in users from 15,000 in 2014 to over 45,000 by Christmas 2015. Completion rates rose 50 percent from the previous year.

Steven Evans said: “The game has really changed the way people feel about training in our stores. There was almost a palpable sense of excitement. I have never had so many people approach me to discuss a piece of learning and how it made them feel.”

The company is looking into opportunities to repeat the game format in different learning contexts.

Better life chances for blind women in the Middle East

Blind women throughout the Middle East are getting the chance to build the skills and confidence to make a better world for themselves at work, home and in their wider communities.

This follows the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Prince Mohammed Bin Fahd Foundation and the British Council for translating and printing Springboard women’s development program training materials into the Arabic Braille language. The foundation will sponsor the production of the Braille materials and make them available for all blind women in the Arab world.

The materials were developed by the Springboard Consultancy, a UK-based international training company specializing in addressing women’s development issues.

The British Council supports the Springboard program in the Middle East, which is delivered by local trainers to women from all backgrounds and ages. So far, over 11,000 women throughout the Middle East – more than half of them from Saudi Arabia – have completed the program.

Springborad is available in 44 countries and has been used by over 240,000 women. Their feedback reveals that: 84 percent are more open to change; 83 percent have a more positive attitude; 80 percent have increased confidence/self-esteem; 79 percent are better at managing change; 78 percent have taken on more responsibility; 75 percent can provide evidence that they are better at problem solving; and 67 percent can provide evidence that they are making better use of resources.

Proud Paige works toward Waitrose apprenticeship

Supermarket chain Waitrose teamed up with work-based training provider First4Skills to help young people to gain new skills and knowledge.

Paige Rose and Jake Keywood have undertaken a Level 2 retail apprenticeship with the supermarket chain which they are both set to complete later this year.

Paige Rose said: “I am so proud of everything I have achieved during my time at Waitrose. Being able to learn the ropes of a job while still gaining a nationally recognized qualification has been a great opportunity for me.”

Waitrose’s partner co-ordination manager, Caroline Fielding, said: “Recruiting apprentices to our team has helped to create a diverse workforce for our branch, by introducing a different recruitment route. It demonstrates Waitrose’s commitment to helping to reduce youth unemployment, enabling us to support our local community by providing full-time opportunities to young people with limited work experience.”

A refined LMS for Raw Technology

A company providing spill response, remediation and specialist environmental services is seeing a number of benefits from using an e-learning LMS.

According to Justin Price, a health and safety adviser at Raw Technology Ltd, the company noticed an immediate and appreciable reduction in its training-related travel and subsistence costs after making learning materials available via the Create e-learning LMS.

“Moreover, we can now keep a closer eye on the learning activities of each of our 130 or so staff,” he continued. “For example, we are able to see who has not begun the training courses, which allows us to follow up with them, who is currently undertaking each module and who has completed what training program, all in real time”. That is important, not least from a compliance and regulatory standpoint.

“We are finding that the system is user-friendly and already we are seeing opportunities for increasing its scope and contents. The platform is highly flexible, catering excellently for our existing training programs and learning materials. It provides exactly what we want from an LMS and gives us a much easier way to track the usage of the learning materials. The course administration is a great deal easier, and produces more valuable user data, than the old Excel-driven system.”

Create e-learning’s LMS is a hybrid platform that caters for coaching, mentoring, online and face-to-face learning. Moreover, users can configure it to deliver learning materials anywhere in the world, in any language and on any delivery device.

Raw Technology’s 130-strong team operates across the UK and Ireland from 16 regional offices. Until relatively recently, Raw delivered all its training programs through face-to-face, classroom-based instruction, a system that was proving increasingly difficult and expensive to sustain. In particular, taking training courses to each office could be both time consuming and expensive in terms of travel, accommodation and subsistence.

“Moreover, Raw is continually growing and therefore always recruiting, and those joining the company are not always based in the same office. This makes bringing the newcomers together for training difficult – and expensive – to arrange”.

“When all the training was carried out in-class, tracking was carried out by means of an Excel spreadsheet,” said Justin Price. “When we decided to put our range of health and safety courses online – in order to make access to these learning materials quicker, cheaper and generally more convenient for learners and trainers – we realized that we needed a learning management system (LMS)”.

“This meant we needed to look for a LMS that could effectively provide the tracking and reporting that we need,” he added. “We also needed a platform that would allow us to upload and access our existing learning materials; allow us to build our own new courses; enable us to administer the entire system ourselves; and do all this for the right price.”

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