Kia Ora,
Again we thank you for your ongoing ability to respond to our changed working environments brought about by Alert Levels.
As we settle into the last quarter of the year let me tell you about some of the great things that are happening, and some of the new things we are working on.
If at any stage you have ideas for things you think we should either do, explore doing – or simply stop doing please drop me a line. You are at the coalface and your inputs are always valued.
Great things
1. Our Online learning platform continues to grow at speed - and it is great to be able to provide clients with whichever type of training best suits their needs at any time. We‘re working to ensure we have the resource levels right to be able to support learners through their online learning journey, and a big shout out to all teams involved in the evolution of this valuable new option.
2. Virtual Reality is the next thing on our development horizon - and we have several pilots made and ready to be trialled. We will begin engagement with companies around how we can incorporate this training option into their mix. We look forward to running some VR sessions online to show you what this looks like, and we think you will be impressed. We will schedule several of these sessions to ensure everyone has an opportunity across the country to view.
3. Improving our training rooms look and feel is something we want to sensibly work on as we have 44,000 people we train each year with many on our premises. We have decided to carefully improve the look and feel of the classrooms
Things we are working on
1. On the subject of ‘ making your life as a trainer easier ‘ we are in the final stages of a system which will allow students to download their feedback forms at the end of a class and automatically upload their feedback without the tiresome need for paper and boxes and your time. This is going to save us hundreds of hours of work across the board and also ensure we get real-time feedback from our clients so that if anything is amiss we can deal with immediately. That said we have the highest levels of satisfaction I have EVER seen so we’re not expecting much will require attention.
2. We are very aware that our growth is constrained by trainer numbers and in an effort to deliver maximum flexibility and support you all - we have a nationwide recruitment drive on to find trainers we can contract – with advance pre-screening, to ensure we can fill all demand and not overwork you. Protecting our core trainers in this covid world is super important, but we all know that it is likely more lockdowns will occur going forward so we need to flexibly manage our cost base.
3. Your Christmas functions are being discussed with your Managers, and given that flying everyone to Auckland isn’t sensible - we will be ensuring you get the money and time to do things that work for you locally.
4. About 50 to 60% of our business is repeat business where clients come back to do additional courses with us. We believe there is a way at the end of every course where we can let them know ‘ what next ‘ would look like and perhaps give them an incentive to book this early. Shortly we will be sent to all sites, slide decks and videos that you can A) play to the class before they start as everyone is assembling which showcase our offerings and B) slides at the end of your session that does let them know what next offers could look like. This will be ready to launch at the beginning of November
5. Staff Opinion survey. We will be sending out a simple anonymous staff opinion survey later this month. This is designed as a pulse check of the organization and allow us to derive feedback from you about what we need to focus on improving.
Sussan Turner