Insurance company’s flexible friend

When a large insurance company wanted to upgrade its company-wide computer system to Windows XP and standardise its email browser as Microsoft Outlook XP, along with introducing new user domains and refreshing its stock of computers, it turned to Training Synergy for help in implementing the accompanying training for its 12,500 or so staff throughout the UK.

The insurance company’s project manager in charge of this major IT initiative explained: “The project began some two years ago and was completed in May 2005.

“We knew that the project involved some major changes throughout the whole company, including the company’s headquarters. Training Synergy’s trainers helped to facilitate the changes that we wanted to make throughout all the companies in our group.

“We put the training that would accompany these changes out to tender – and were impressed by Training Synergy’s proposals for this £1m project,” the project manager continued.

“The tender focused on the key issue of being able to train our staff to use Microsoft Outlook XP, since there were a number of email browsers – including Netscape and Lotus Notes – then in use within the company. Bringing staff up-to-speed on the intricacies of Microsoft Office XP was straightforward compared with what was involved in introducing the new browser.”

With help from Training Synergy, the project manager and his team produced a one hour training presentation on the subject, accompanied by handout notes – for those who wanted to attend a classrom-based training session.

Those who prefered the self-study approach were given access to both ‘hard copy’ and e-learning materials. These, along with a version of the classroom-based presentation, were also available via the company intranet as refresher training materials.

Finally, every person who underwent the training had access to ‘one-to-one’ coaching sessions.

“As you can imagine, for a training exercise of this magnitude and complexity to be completed successfully required a high degree of flexibility on the part of the trainers,” said the insurance company’s project manager. “In particular, Synergy’s trainers had to cope with the inevitable last minute changes of plan.

“After all, things are not always plain sailing when you have to ensure that each person in the organisation has their new PC pre-built to the correct profile; it is delivered on time; installed correctly; the person is available to not only receive the PC but also the training needed to operate it properly, and so on. You only need one thing to go wrong and the whole schedule changes!”

“Because of the widespread geography of this project, we used a team of 20 trainers – and provided online support to all users via the company intranet,” said Training Synergy director, David Field.

“Since staff buy-in was vital to the smooth running of the migration, we implemented a change management programme with all the insurance company’s staff attending presentations on the changes that would occur and the benefits that the organisation was seeking to gain. After these presentations, a team of floorwalkers delivered desk-side training,” Field continued.

The project manager concluded: “The fact that there has been no increase in calls from our staff to our internal IT helpdesk is a tribute to the Synergy trainers and would indicate that the training has been a success.

“We were impressed by Synergy’s desire not to be just another training provider but to actively help us to build the training materials. Synergy became engaged as a partner in this project rather than a mere contractor.

“Synergy was open – and happy – to be as flexible as we needed their trainers to be. Indeed, throughout the project, we never had an occasion when Synergy was unable to meet our needs – even if we left it until the ‘11th hour’ to make these needs known!”

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Notes for 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 is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of freelance IT trainers.

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.

Training Synergy is part of the Synergy Group (formed in 1997 and now with an annual turnover of some £40m). Training Synergy has grown from £3m turnover in 2004 to £8m turnover in 2005. It delivers some 40,000 training days a year and has 7,000 trainers on its database.

Its clients include the Ministry of Defence, the National Health Service, IBM, EDS, Getronics, Unisys, Accenture and Atos.
Further Information from:
Daniel Hanlon / David Field, Synergy, 0800 072 5900 or 020 7556 1140 /1141
Bob Little, Bob Little Press & PR, 01727 860405
www.trainingsynergy.com