Hawksmoor Hydrotherapy have completed a case study explaining why they switched to Prodeceo for managing their learners.
Prodeceo replaced an internally managed Moodle install which instructors and learners found difficult to use.
You can read the case study here.
As many of us return to work rejuvenated after a relaxing summer break there is an opportunity to review our progress this year.
What changes did you plan to make at the start of the year? What were your goals for developing your organisation's training strategy?
Have you:
To make the most of your appraisal, you need to be fair and honest. Give yourself credit for what has been achieved and look to improve or change areas that are now working as intended.
If you have achieved all of your goals, what are you planning on doing to surpass the original plan?
Companies of different sizes manage training in different ways. Small companies with a dozen or so employees can provide instruction to their staff by simply talking to them, while at the other end of the scale, large employers have HR departments and Learning & Development teams. Between these micro and large organisations are many SMEs who face a challenge in providing their staff with the knowledge they require. This includes engineering, manufacturing and construction companies.
Often there are no suitable external training courses or the cost of the course or loss of staff time makes them impractical. External training can be too generic and the new skills are not used back in the office. Another challenge for employers is providing instruction for those working on a building site or in a factory.
The solution is for employers to take charge and develop their own training programmes and create valuable how-to guides.
For many this is a daunting task and below I explore the barriers that may stop employers developing the resources to build a learning culture.
Think again. Many employers do not deliver training in a conventional classroom based way. However most employers have induction programmes, deliver tool box talks, give H&S updates, provide instructions about new procedures and updates to improve quality. Learning takes place all the time, but it is not always timetabled and called training.
In the past the cost of gathering information for training programmes or instruction guides made it unrealistic for most SMEs. However this is no longer the case and there are many low cost tools that employers can use to capture and share valuable information. Educationalists call it 'Content Curation' we call it a practical way of providing employees with the knowledge they require.
This is even more reason to explore and share free resources. YouTube is full of instruction videos and manufacturers have resources employers can use.
Making information available 24/7 is important and this is now possible as the range of document sharing tools expands. This can be simple file sharing, project management software or learning management systems.
Again the range tools available to prove competency has increased dramatically. There are lots of ways of capturing evidence from workplace and systems to provide automatic reminders of mandatory training.
It can be challenging for employers to take charge of in-house training but the rewards are great. Employers will have a real commercial advantage if they can beat the skills shortages that are often highlighted in the business press.
Many FE colleges are providing employers with information about the use of learning technologies in the workplace. G Acceleration is able to work with employers helping them introduce in-house training solutions and find new ways of sharing information.
What does a quality training session look like? There are many things that can help you deliver a high quality experience to your learners. This article has a few suggestions.
You should make sure that you are on ready to start at the agreed time. If you are using one, your laptop should be connected to the projector and your presentation should be ready. This demonstrates that you understand the value of the time that you have with your learners.
Similarly, you should not run over the stated finishing time. Your learners have other tasks which need their attention perhaps a conference call or collecting their children from school. I always aim to finish around 5 minutes before the stated time, so that I can take questions and people are ready to leave at the stated time.
Make sure that you can be heard by everyone. If you have a soft voice, then use a microphone if one is available available or invite people to sit closer.
If you are a new trainer or are delivering a new training course this can be difficult. You should be as prepared as possible for your session. Take the time to do a full rehearsal so that you can feel confident when presenting.
Remember that you have probably been asked to deliver the course as you know the subject matter well.
Provide examples that are relevant to your audience. This particularly applies if you deliver training to a number of different organisations or audiences. Using appropriate examples demonstrates that you have tailored the course for this audience.
Taking these points into consideration will give your learners a high quality learning experience and enable them to focus on the subject matter.
We are pleased to announce that our new application programming interface API is now available to everyone.
For the non technical among you, an API enables you to link Prodeceo with other applications. The most common example would be connecting to a HR database so that new starters have Prodeceo accounts created automatically.
The API is free to use, and you can find some advice and examples in the API section of the help centre by clicking here.
If you'd rather we took care of the plumbing between your application and Prodeceo then we would be more than happy to discuss this with you.