REMOTE TRAINING AND COMPETENCY TECHNOLOGIES FOR A NET-ZERO FUTURE

By Keith Adam, Managing Director, Polaris Learning

As we move to a net-zero future and push on with the energy transition, the COVID 19 pandemic has forced all of us to accelerate our thinking and focus our efforts when it comes to working remotely across all areas of our businesses.

The world of training and competency has, of course, been no different.

The challenges facing all of us since March 2020 are the same challenges that we face in a net-zero future: How do we keep our people trained and competent using remote technologies? How do we do this in a way that engages and motivates them? What do we do to ensure that learning is transferred to the workplace? What strategies work well for developing soft skills and technical skills, and achieving competencies? And how do we do this in a way that is practical and works for each individual’s needs and organisation’s requirements?

We have been working in the world of remote training and competency solutions for many years and we recognise that we need to all work together to provide learning and competence solutions that are fit for purpose, are not over developed or complicated to use but built from proven principles of learning and development.

At Polaris Learning, we repeatedly see that to upskill our workforce and achieve our growth strategies using remote training and online learning we must keep learning and development strategies at the heart of everything, and we must understand how people learn and the process that they need to go through if they are really going to absorb, own, apply and use the information when it really matters - that is, on the job.

In addition, we should maximise the opportunities from going online, for example, planning progression and creating solutions to assist with multi-skilling and soft skills development. We can also use online solutions to provide the tools to address more challenging areas of training and competence such as maintaining knowledge of procedures, organisational learning and reassessment.

However, talking about remote training and online learning is not the whole picture in any industry and certainly not in a high risk industry. Competence is also essential.

If we want people to be upskilled for the energy transition, we need to make sure that they are competent. Linking remote training with on-the job training and mixing online assessment with on-the- job assessment are options, and new technologies make this possible.

You can also use these technologies to make sure that the training is genuinely being transferred to the workplace. And you can use the information provided by the technology to identify gaps in competency so that you can circle back and work out what learning and support is needed.

Not only are you then able to upskill your workforce for the future, but you are able to check that it is working. You may also find that your learning and development strategy has become more effective through your having a much clearer picture on where to focus your time, effort and budget.

And we are sure that you will also achieve sustained change, and a more motivated, connected and technically and soft skills upskilled team.