Reduced Carbon Footprint, Savings and Safety Compliance
November 3rd 2008 Is this your organisation’s mantra? If so read on and see how by changing your approach to the provision of training, and embracing technology, you can achieve each of these ambitions while at the same time continuing to meet the organisation’s objectives.
The provision of training is an essential part of any business culture. It can drive improved efficiencies, increase product knowledge and sales, raise employee morale and team working, and achieve compliance with legislative requirements. The importance of training is now generally well accepted at all levels of management, and by employees and their representatives. In these difficult economic times though, training may seem an “easy” target as organisations strive to reduce costs. But if training budgets or activity levels are cut, significantly increased risks may be incurred.
Looking closely at the costs of training shows that external instructor-led training will see charges raised by the trainer for the purchase of the course, plus costs arising from the delegates’ time away from the workplace, their travelling time to the venue and travelling costs. Where in-house training is undertaken, costs can be reduced, but where a number of employees and the trainer have to travel to the venue or take an overnight stay, then the costs will increase significantly, as will the environmental impact of providing the training.
According to the Carbon Trust, global warming is caused by increases in levels of greenhouse gases attributable to human activities. Carbon dioxide is the main contributor, comprising 80% of pollutant emissions from industrialised countries, and being released into the atmosphere when oil, petrol and natural gas are burned. This means that travel associated with training could be adding to your organisation’s carbon footprint. But is there an alternative?
As John F Kennedy said, “Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man”, and so we turn to technology when we strive for savings in costs and reduction in environmental impact. As the author of this article, I used a laptop computer to produce the copy, and then passed it to the Editor at HSM electronically using my Broadband connection. Had I been asked to write a piece for HSM in the 1980’s, I would have handwritten the text and passed it to a secretary to type. The typed text would then have been passed back to me for approval or alteration, before being posted and then re-typed at the HSM offices. How much time we used to waste!
Looking back to the 1990’s, my training administration team would spend all their time receiving training requests, booking course venues and courses, sending joining instructions and then recording training events within training records. I would spend many hours preparing training materials onto acetate transparencies to illustrate the courses I delivered, never mind the amount of time needed to photocopying handout materials. A big headache then was the need to maintain hardcopy training records for an ever-increasing workforce, as was the creation of meaningful reports for my management team.
Today all that has changed. Training material is prepared on a desktop or laptop computer, and a projector linked to the computer means that training materials need never be printed. “Knowledge” and foundation information are available and shared online as reference materials, and training booking and records are managed by learning management systems (LMS). Training delivery is now no longer solely reserved for instructor-led training but has developed into a blended learning approach where other training mediums are made available to employees. These include the now familiar eLearning and more recently, as a further technology-based development, mobile learning (mLearning), which uses a mobile device as the delivery interface. Training solutions delivered through these modern mechanisms are not just Powerpoint on the Internet but, using the latest advances in technology, are powerful and engaging training experiences that measure learning by assessment. They are delivered, tracked and recorded by a multi-function LMS that also maintains attendance and completion (compliance) records. Best of all, the LMS also has the capability to run the required management reports!
So by deploying these new training mechanisms, eLearning and mLearning, your organisation could maintain the number of training events it delivers to employees, whilst at the same time providing a useful reduction in travel costs. The organisation would still be able to meet its obligations in health and safety compliance, with the added bonus of being able to provide training wherever and whenever it is required. Oh, and its carbon footprint might also be considerably reduced as a result.
If you would like to learn more about how health, safety and environment eLearning or mLearning could help your organisation, or arrange a demonstration,then please click here.
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