Like a Rolling Stone

By UKS

Some time back, Forbes magazine referenced a survey indicating that more than 35% of successful CEOs say that a shortage of key skill on their strategic technology infrastructure is a critical threat to their business and industries. That threat was heading the list, leading alongside conventional threats (such as competition) by giant leaps.

As it is with high flagged threats, companies reacted fast and foresaw answers by investing in continuous employee training and development and meanwhile, simultaneously, their eyes were also set on the returns. The results were groundbreaking.

Companies that don’t invest enough in training , slightly under 10% of the budget, are 3 times more likely to see their critical projects and systems ( ie: ERP, CRM Core banking system, Asset management system, decision making systems… ) run overtime and over budget, whereas, those that invest in the traditional training classroom have their workforce demanding 6 times more support and their employees forgetting 70% of what they learned in only 2 weeks after training, with the 30% knowledge retains mostly belonging to the basket of day to day activities or tasks list. This is without touching the sides of high cost and lengthy time associated with traditional training classrooms.

The outcomes of such an investment were outrageous and unacceptable. The solution lay somewhere else.

Bricks in the wall.
With the possibility of facing a similar business threat upon its merger, one of the major banks in the UAE selected UKS to define and implement an optimal training strategy providing the highest returns, financially and knowledge wise.

Extensive workshops were held, lead by our training consultant’s team, business processes reengineering wizards and strategic content development gurus to define a solution that offers a mix between the traditional classroom and modern training methodologies, capturing the best of both.

With more than 2,000 employees spread across different branches and spanning a wide geographical area, the facility needed a training infrastructure that can handle all the training needs, increase user productivity and maximize user adoption ratio. The business challenges were many, starting from thousands that needed to be trained in less than a week to improving business practices of the new applications and re-organizing all business processes under one global umbrella; while at the same time, delivering coherent and consistent training to all employees and new recruits, re-highlighting important policies and procedures, catering to different languages – all that under a very tight budget and time frame.

After some major planning and extensive testing and perseverance, the solution was astounding.

The show will go on.
UKS implemented a blend of a Web-based training, instructor-led training and an electronic performance support system under one unified and coherent vision, reducing the threat and making sure that the training and development investments were sound and with high returns. That three-tier solution had no doubt generated a higher return than any exclusively instructor-led or blended instructor-led/Web-based training solution.

UKS designed a comprehensive eTraining strategy reaping off the benefits of best of breed simulation based systems, knowledge management systems and learning solutions while at the same time developing quality web-based training and articulating face-to-face training that rose above all the business challenges.

As an outcome of this strategy, content development experts were deployed at the clients' premises where they developed highly interactive simulations, system clones and lifelike learning tutorials ensuring superior knowledge retention and catering for the training needs for every business process that employees across all branches need to through.
As the recent Garner reported, professionally trained users have 50% fewer errors and can spend more time on critical tasks. Currently the errors per user dropped to less than 25% and the bank is experiencing a reduction in helpdesk calls up to 80% due to availability of support materials after Go-Live and a higher learning retention rate.

The benefits multiplier effect.
Monitoring the reimbursements and benefits the bank was self-generating was certainly a scene.  The outcomes of the overall solution were far greater and on the rise than the initial injections of technology, policies and trainings.

With improved quality of performance and user experience, the bank efficiently follows a homogenous training process at all branches while sustaining efficient and individualized training for every employee.
Training costs were dramatically slashed by more than 40% of the traditional training cost the first year, reaching up to 60% cost reduction the year after, by eliminating any refreshment training cost. Moreover, huge reductions in time to deploy, update, maintain and localize training material are being experienced.

Interactive and secure training sessions ensured employees best knowledge retention coupled with a collaborative environment to share knowledge and peer-to-peer best practices, all of which has resulted in a rolling stone effect of benefits that is only getting bigger and bigger by time.

What was designed to help save a company from a critical threat, turned out to plant a nest with premium safety pillars around the organization processes, stakeholders and overall business interests.