The Changing Focus of End User Training

According to the training solutions provider Training Synergy, distinctions between what has been traditionally segregated as IT and business skills training are becoming much more blurred. The company, which delivers some 40,000 end user training days a year, on bespoke systems, believes that courses now need to reflect how a user engages with technology and exploits that technology to the best of her/his ability, rather than trying to change the user’s process to match the technology.

"A good example of this is Communities of Practice (CoP) and the products that facilitate the concept," said Training Synergy’s David Field. "The users of, and contributors to, these communities need to understand not only the tools that exist to support them but also how to engage with them and contribute effectively, so that the CoP is enhanced.

"Training is now more than ever about work processes rather than specific applications," he explained. "This type of training needs to be carefully developed and then deployed in a way that is engaging and rapidly absorbed by users.

"If it is to be effective and absorbable, training needs to be succinct and avoid superfluous information," he added."Traditionally, this has not been the case - with the proliferation of ‘catch all’ standardised applications training."

Field explained that the delivery of this training needs to be done in short bursts and reinforced with on-going support and encouragement from training consultants or specifically selected superusers. Doing this results in relevant and useful training interventions, more motivated capable employees and, ultimately, significant savings from increased productivity, he claimed.

Training Synergy has found that, over the last eight years, its training projects and solutions have been increasingly focused on specific work processes and ‘snappier’ delivery methods.

Field commented: "From our work with the NHS to the UK’s leading retail banks, our training projects are very much about learning new work processes, producing relevant and engaging courses and then delivering these in short, two to three hour sessions, workshops and drop-in courses.

"Underpinning this delivery technique needs to be a support structure of on-site specialist, email and telephone support, with superusers and floorwalkers verifying that learners have retained what they have been taught. Increasingly, we’ve found that e-learning also has a vital role in providing legacy materials and delivering to dispersed groups."

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Notes to Editors:

About Training Synergy

With over 300 training personnel working on projects across the UK at any one time and a turnover in excess of £10m, Training Synergy - part of the Synergy Group, formed in 1997 and now with an annual turnover of some £40m - is one of the UK’s largest training solutions providers. Training Synergy delivers some 40,000 training days a year and has 7,000 trainers on its database.

Training Synergy provides a range of training services to support all types and size of training programme, from initial consulting right through to project-managed implementation. It also provides logistics and logistical services to support clients’ ongoing training needs.

Its clients include IBM, EDS, Getronics, Unisys, Accenture and Atos Origin.

Training Synergy was placed 15th in the 2006 list of the ‘Top 50 IT training companies’, compiled by market analysts IT Skills Research.

Further Information from:
Daniel Hanlon / David Field, Training Synergy, 0800 072 5900 or 020 7556 1140 /1141;
www.trainingsynergy.com

Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, 01727 860405; www.boblittlepr.com