FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH!

We’ve discussed the values and benefits associated with multi-sensory media many times in previous BLOGS. We’ve seen the real positive results that are making a real difference in education and training. Today, however, I’d like to share some factual results that individual businesses have been achieving:

a) A leading energy corporation had a training need in their pipeline division. Their challenge was to disburse training to over 100 individual sites, some of which were only manned by one or two individuals while, at the same time, reducing training costs under new budget restraints. Their solution was to adopt an e-Learning approach with the recordkeeping networked back to corporate headquarters. This company enjoyed a return on investment by reducing travel costs and reducing time-away-from-job.

b) A major chemical company had 18 satellite locations in North and South America. Their challenge was to provide consistent training to a diverse workforce. Again, e-Learning provided the solution and because of the efficiencies associated with e-Learning, they realized a cost savings of more than $500,000 in the first three years of the program.

c) A leading chemical and pipeline provider needed to launch a technician training program to 78 site locations across the country. Since the sites were automated and each manned by a staff of less than five employees, their challenge was to effectively disperse training to a group of employees whose job was to sit and do nothing but make sure that the automated equipment was working correctly. E-Learning allowed them to place the courseware right in the control center where employees could take the training while working their shift. This company saw a major reduction in training costs because they no longer had to take the employees off the job in order to train.

d) A manufacturer of airplane engine parts had a major staffing issue. Faced with the fact that their employee population was aging, with more than half of their maintenance and operations staff due to retire in the next five years, they knew they had to cross-train in order to increase the skill level of their younger workers. The challenge was how to effectively do the training and, yet, not impact the current production schedule. They could not afford to take a large group off the floor or take the more experienced workers away from the job. Their solution was to open a learning center within the facility. Workers were scheduled to complete multi-sensory media instruction in multiple shifts with little, or no, impact on the daily operations.

e) A chemical company needed to obtain certification in ISO and NICET training for their instrument technicians. Again, multi-sensory media was chosen as their training solution. The program proved a success and the training time was cut in half from what they were investing with a local community college.

f) A major employee services and consulting firm had many employees located at a variety of customer facilities, manning and maintaining a diverse range of production processes and equipment including off-shore rigs, manufacturing facilities, pipelines, construction sites and oil refineries. Their challenge was to provide a consistent training program to a diverse audience with varied skill sets and widely divergent reading levels. Multi-sensory media instruction proved the best solution because it provided consistent training and was not based on one’s reading fluency.

g) A major chemical company needed to enhance their apprenticeship program. They wanted the training to be self-paced and home accessible. They chose e-Learning as their solution because it can be delivered successfully in half the time and allows for automatic recordkeeping.

Actual experience from users is the best test of any training program. It’s good to read these endorsements of multi-sensory learning. Those who adopt it have had great success — and, with attendant investment paybacks. Those who don’t — and, continue to rely on the less effective traditional training methods of “lecture/reading” — do so at their own peril.