A Corporate Learning Perspective

Background
Macintyre Hudson historically ran two types of training; the first taking the traditional lecture/classroom attendance sessions and the second being a server-based electronic solution for new joiner inductions

To stress the importance of training within Macintyre Hudson's organisation there is a system of fines.  Hence if an individual misses a course then their team or business unit is penalised.

Evaluation
When MacIntyre Hudson were evaluating e-learning solutions, from the HR managers viewpoint it was essential that it would encourage interactivity in tuition sessions; that it was able to be regularly updated; that they were able to monitor progress remotely and that any new resources were automatically flagged to the users.

Helping Human Resources
The three national HR managers at Macintyre Hudson have responsibility for three offices each and co-ordinate the training courses across the firm.  It was often a logistical issue to get the right people on the relevant courses on a specific date and at one of two locations – either London or Milton Keynes.  Even though CPD and training was high on the corporate agenda, the HR managers still had to deal with the perception that time out-of-office was often regarded as precious time wasted. 

In2itive's solution now allows MacIntyre Hudson’s  national HR managers to focus on delivering and monitoring the training, direct to individuals at their desktop and at their convenience. As a result, they are spending less time on the never-ending logistics of organising actual events.

Removing the IT hassle
When it came to bringing the solution into service, In2itive worked closely with MacIntyre Hudson’s IT department to set up the front-end user access.  It  was  essential  that  everything integrated with MacIntyre Hudson’s recently upgraded IT system. 

The installation went smoothly and In2itive provided training to relevant personnel across the organisation to get them up to speed on and even prepared an introductory company-wide email on behalf of the partner responsible for training. 

Conforming with IT Policy
MacIntyre Hudson takes advantage of a 'Locale' version of In2itive LMS, which is designed especially for corporate clients with large user communities. The Locale version retains all of the web-based features (logging, search quizzes etc), but utilises a technology called BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer System) to drip feed the video training content to the clients' server.  This technique affords two key benefits; firstly it reduces any potential bandwidth demand issues relating to large volumes of video-training productions and secondly, it ensures compliance with any corporate firewall rules that may be in place.

Part of the Future
Rakesh Shaunak, Partner, with management board responsibility for training at MacIntyre Hudson
 “In2itive's solution is now an integral part of the training programme at MacIntyre Hudson.   It has enabled the HR managers to provide consistent training regardless of locations, which was often a logistical issue before it was installed.  All in all it has added real value, and provided us with a real-time reference database that can be accessed wherever a user is.”