Top mining team TCI training: 400 people trained per week

The client

One of Australia’s largest exporters of coal.

The challenges

Our client needed an effective and efficient way to induct and train 400 contractors and new employees every week.

The company had relied on classroom-based, PowerPoint presentations to present complex and content-heavy material. While this information was crucial, feedback from participants showed that the existing course was “boring” and was not delivering the outcomes they required. Replication was rife and extremely wasteful. The paperwork burden across seven mines, one port and head office added huge and unnecessary costs to the process. The client needed its training program to include smooth transitions between sites and roles to avoid unnecessary replication.

The challenge for TCI was to transform the training material into interesting, interactive learning that all participants would understand and remember, while adhering to legislation. We had to tailor the solution for an industry with a higher percentage of low-literacy employees than most and a culture that may resist online training.

The goals

The training solution had to:

include all relevant learning materials, re-written for the eLearning environment
incorporate an LMS and courseware that could be easily accessed and used by high volumes of staff, who may or may not be computer literate
be interactive and user-friendly
include standard operating procedures, generic induction information and safety training materials
cover this material through training courses assigned to more than 160 roles across 9 sites
be available at any time or location the client chose, including many low bandwidth areas
be able to track employees’ progress and the completion of modules, and interact with other systems to capture data
include assessments to ensure that participants had retained the information
reduce the time spent on induction across all sites to increase overall productivity.

Why TCI?

The client invited seven companies across Australia to tender. They shortlisted 3 and then selected TCI because we:

showed the most creativity in the design and layout of the solutions
demonstrated the best understanding of the mix between technical and creative requirements, and teaching principles
developed a solution that was easy to understand and deliver precisely what was needed
demonstrated flexibility during the process.

The solution

TCI designed and developed a course look, feel and layout that addressed the client’s cultural challenges. We built 96 individual courses that delivered the training required and catered to the 160 different roles across 9 sites. The program was tailored to the needs of the audience so it was truly engaging, interactive and memorable.

We also suggested and implemented an LMS that could track the progress of employees while providing seamless registration and payment options to multiple external vendors.

The results

The solution went live in March 2011. Since then:

the client inducts an average of 400 contractors and new employees across Queensland every week
the information is being retained by participants, and this is now easy to track through the LMS
the cost of induction has decreased and productivity has increased
all site training managers and safety managers have completed the training and provided full support for the program
the client refers to the solution as a new benchmark for training within their organisation and its wider parent company network
the client has commissioned several other projects through TCI.