Educational technology is supporting manufacturers and distributors to provide training to the sector!

Upskilling employees became problematic during the global pandemic with travelling restrictions and the very small number of participants allowed to be facilitated in one class. During this time, organisations turned to “online” and “eLearning” as teaching methods to upskill their employees. Post-pandemic, online and eLearning became the new norm! Combine both methods with face-to-face classroom teaching, and organisations now have better access to upskilling their employees than ever! Two such organisations that were early adopters of this technological approach to learning are Fleetwood Paints and Uppercross Enterprises Ltd (UEL) & NIKO Bathrooms.

The Fleetwood Paints Journey to eLearning
Fleetwood Paints celebrates 73 years of manufacturing paints and painting accessories in Ireland in 2023 is an Irish family business. And during the global pandemic, Fleetwood benefitted from the lockdown and boom in DIY sales. It would have been easy for them to ignore the upskilling of retail sales staff during such a busy time. However, they did the opposite.

They embarked on a nationwide “online” paint academy in 2021 and 2022 and the design and development of eLearning courses. And finally, this year, they brought back the highly successful face-to-face Fleetwood Paints Learning Academy in Virginia Co. Cavan.

There were six key drivers that led Fleetwood to invest in eLearning:

  1. Access to learners – Fleetwood recognised that Sales Assistants are the key people to upskill as they are engaging with customers all day, every day. Based on a simple equation of 500 retail stores employing two employees, the requirement to upskill Sales Assistants amounted to a 1,000. However, providing only classroom-based learning with 12 persons attending meant it would take approximately four years to upskill them using traditional training methods! eLearning meant access to learners was immediate and, more importantly, had no barriers to volume and was available all at once!
  2. Evergreen Learning – Critical to the uptake of learning offered by suppliers is the ability to undertake it on the learner’s own schedule, whether early morning or late evening, over a weekend or during work hours. Fleetwood
    made it possible by making the eLearning courses available 24/7/365!
  3. Continuous upskilling – Fleetwood are constantly making improvements to their current range and introducing new paints and products to their catalogue. The biggest challenge to a manufacturer or distributor is to continuously upskill retail staff or tradespersons. eLearning is the answer! Courses can be updated within minutes, so learning is always current. And new courses can be brought to the market within days, which means that upskilling of those selling your products is continuous!
  4. Learner Access – A learner’s access to learning is traditionally driven and arranged by store management. In contrast, learners can self-register to complete an eLearning course using a laptop, tablet or their own mobile phone via an app. The app allows the learner to download the course to their phone and complete it without internet access. More importantly, learners will automatically get a notification of all new courses made available and quarterly quizzes and challenges to keep their learning fresh.
  5. Learner Engagement – The design and development of the learning content had to be of a high educational standard and, most critical, keep the learner engaged with the learning. The on-screen design of these courses included avatars, photos, video, gamification, animation, voice-over and quizzes and learners’ assessments.
  6. Learner Recognition – Critical to any learner is the recognition for their effort by the receipt of a certificate or award. This supports their competence as well as confidence, and their career growth. Fleetwood created a Digital Badge, which is issued to the learner automatically and can be displayed on their social media accounts, emails, or CV. Digital Badges can also be displayed on the store’s website or social media channels giving the customer confidence in their professionalism. They can
    collect multiple Digital Badges to build their knowledge and skills.

In 2023 Fleetwood are expanding the range of courses and the audience type and reach by including “tutorials” and “how-to” for retail staff, tradespersons, and interior designers!

The UEL & NIKO Bathrooms Journey to Online & eLearning UEL and Niko Bathrooms (part of the UEL Group) are one of Ireland’s leading suppliers of high-quality Plumbing Fittings & Heating Solutions and Bathroom Products for almost 40 years.

Embracing the use of Edtech, UEL immediately recognised how it aligned perfectly and was a critical factor as they planned and developed their Employee Training Programme, with a dual focus on training and career path development within the group. Their journey began by delivering online courses for their supervisors and managers. Declan Dowling (Warehouse Manager) began exploring how to use this technology to train Warehouse Operatives in advance of them commencing their job to speed up their on-the-job learning as part of the groups onboarding process. Declan began by doing a step-by-step analysis of the various parts of the job and documenting each process. He then identified any issues or common mistakes that arose. Combining all his findings he contracted QedON to develop the material into an eLearning course. The design of the course included videos recorded in the warehouse of each picking and packing process which are then broken into component parts for the learner to learn in sequence.

As part of the Employee Training Programme, Declan then introduced the course to all of the warehouse team as a refresher for new recruits and long service employees. The uptake was high and employees engaged and embraced it with a defining factor being its ease of use.

From this Declan, in conjunction with a Health and Safety Consultant, designed and developed three safety courses, Spill Kit Training, Manual Handling Introduction & Refresher and An Introduction to Safety, Health & Welfare. The latter two courses were built for all employees, not just warehouse operatives. All these courses are hosted on a learner management system (LMS) managed by a third party. UEL and Niko Bathrooms now have five eLearning courses available to all employees in the Group and have plans to extend this to include product knowledge across their brand portfolio.

The experience of Declan and UEL management of eLearning and the LMS brought other benefits such as:

  1. Launch of Employee Training Programme – It allowed UEL & Niko Bathrooms launch their Employee Training Programme with all functionalities now inhouse. Each employee has been assigned their own learning “dashboard” where they can continuously access the learning to see their progress and engage with ad hoc learning activities set by the system. The LMS system notifies the learner of upcoming course completion dates or forthcoming assessment dates, graded assessments and then delivers certificates and Digital Badges to the user upon completion.
  2. Real-Time Training Administration – Management can assess detailed reports including how long it takes a learner to complete any course, what activities they struggled with on screen, what questions they incorrectly answered or group anomalies.
  3. Performance Management – To maintain high standards and performance levels employees can repeat a course (or part of a course) as requested by management as part of performance reviews. It can also act as a key
    indicator for management, highlighting employees that have scored optimum results in particular courses. This alerts management to employee’s skillsets which is key to managing their professional development and career progression internally. This is also useful when employees are transferring from one department to another or have been out of the business for a period of time.
  4. Staff Recruitment – A key benefit when recruiting, UEL/Niko Bathrooms now actively promote that “full training is provided” with images of the learner management system and their digital badging as part of group’s recruitment initiatives.
  5. Learning Opportunities for Career Progression – Paul Thompson, MD requested that all online course and study materials be made available to all employees to allow them to review the material and study in their own time to encourage employees to consider career opportunities and enhance their own career path progression within the Group.

The future plans for UEL & Niko Bathrooms when it comes to eLearning and LMS is to develop their ability to provide computer skills, particularly MS Excel, Word and PowerPoint in an online format.

For further information on these eLearning programmes please contact Fong Hayes, Director of EdTech Development at QedON, 089 2607509 and fong.hayes@qedon.com or Jim Copeland, jim@hardwareassociation.ie, 087 6671361.