5 Benefits of Digitizing Your Training Management

As part of our recent Skillko Spotlight Series, we held a webinar on ‘How To Digitize Your Training Management’. Here we were joined by Sinead Gaines, HSEQ Manager with PJ Hegarty & Sons and Jack Foubitster, Training Manager with Keltbray, to discuss their journey with Skillko and the digital transformation within their business.

There were some really insightful discussions throughout the 30-minute webinar so we thought it would be useful to summarise the top 5 key takeaways for you;

1. Reducing administration & boosting productivity

By having a cloud-based system, both guests highlighted how beneficial this was for reducing administration on areas such as manual data input on Microsoft Excel. Jack advised that Keltbray have been able to reduce the number of people in their training department & remove the resource administration between contract/project managers. Those people have now been allocated to different areas of the business increasing productivity across the company and dramatically reducing the time spent on manual administration.

2. Accuracy of information

A key aspect of ensuring compliance in any business is ensuring the data and information you keep is accurate. However, due to the challenges of data input over excel along with turnover of staff, the accuracy of information being recorded was a constant challenge Keltbray faced. Jack noted that since the introduction of Skillko, this has improved dramatically. Due to the nature of the software, it only allows the correct information to be stored and matched to the correct staff profile. Also, by booking training through the Skillko Marketplace, Jack no longer needs to worry about chasing and uploading missing certificates from training providers as they are automatically uploaded by the training providers through the Skillko system.

3. Extracting data for reports

For professionals in both HSEQ and Training departments, having to gather data for monthly or quarterly reports is a constant challenge and can be administratively heavy. Thankfully by having a software platform like Skillko, this data is easily extractable and can be used as a powerful tool to aid in providing information to other departments within your business. Sinead, commented on how the reports she can extract from Skillko were a massive asset when having to present to Clients, Directors and Senior management within PJ Hegarty & Sons;

‘The information was hugely useful. I could tell them straight away how much the business had spent and I could also tell them the cost projections for the training of staff for the next three to four years. That was hugely helpful. The other area I could tell them was how much money the business lost in terms of people who didn’t show up for training. I got much more buy in from management when they saw this data and when they could see how much we actually lost on training.’

Sinead Gaines
HSEQ Manager

4. Being proactive rather than reactive

Trying to manage and book training across sectors such as construction and utilities can often be on a reactive basis, while trying to coordinate this task can create challenges. However, by switching to Skillko, Sinead mentioned how PJ Hegarty’s are now able to be much more proactive in this area.

By having a dashboard on Skillko, they have an overview of all the training that is expiring over the next 90 days. They are also able to filter and search by people based in different sites and locations. This has allowed them to have a much more forward thinking approach that allows them to manage their staff resources much more efficiently and proactively.

5. Moving away from the limitations of Excel

For many HSEQ professionals, Microsoft Excel is the default tool used to manage and track compliance across a training matrix. While this tool does a certain job, there are a lot of limitations associated along with its labour intensive data input.

Throughout the webinar Sinead spoke about the challenge’s PJ Hegarty’s found when trying to track over 500 staff and 2,500 certificates on an Excel spreadsheet. It just was not working for them. They could not track training metrics and were struggling to track compliance. It also feeds into our previous point about maintaining accuracy. Sinead mentioned that by using Excel, ‘it was only as good as the people that were keeping it’.

Now by having a fully automated digital matrix on Skillko, PJ Hegarty’s are in total control of their training and compliance across the business without the pains and challenges of Excel spreadsheets.

Conclusion

Through digitizing their training and resource management with Skillko, both PJ Hegarty’s & Keltbray are experiencing benefits that were not previously possible. Skillko has helped the HSEQ & Operations teams across both businesses to close the administrational gap in resource training & compliance management, removing duplication of work and fostering better working relationships across departments.

If you want to know more about how Skillko can help your business, visit our website www.Skillko.com and book a free demo of our platform.

You can also watch back the full webinar recording below

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61r9mKKZTSA&t=7s

Skillko is a Training, Safety & Compliance Management Company with a complete training management solution that helps businesses ensure they have a trained workforce & training providers grow their business.