Date: May 1, 2008
West Lothian Council turns to interactive audience response technology for sensitive race relations training
23 April 2008: West Lothian Council today announced that it is using the new TurningPoint interactive audience response system to help deliver its race relations training programme for more than 900 staff.
In 2007, the West Lothian Council Learning and Development team recognised that some staff from certain areas, for example Domiciliary Care and Operational Services were struggling to complete the race training in its current format, either online or hard copy booklet. These staff are hard to reach with the conventional training methods because many do not work in offices, fixed locations or have access to computers. The team also understood that the mandatory race relations training had to be delivered with real impact.
“We were facing a real challenge – how to deliver important race relations training to hard-to-reach staff,” says Kerry McDaid, HR Advisor for West Lothian Council. “Our first reaction was to use hard copy training booklets but we met with a lot of resistance. At nearly 100 pages, they were not user-friendly – staff couldn’t find the time or inclination to sit down and work through such a large booklet. Comprehension and literacy issues were also a concern.”
The Learning and Development team had recently meet with Steljes, the technology pioneering organisation, for a demonstration of the award winning Turning Point handsets from Turning Technologies. They realised that due to the ease of use and scalability the handsets would offer a solution to their training problem, the handsets have now been used to train over 900 employees. The Learning and Development team converted the race relations information from the booklets into an interactive PowerPoint presentation and are using TurningPoint to answer the questions through out the training sessions. Staff can answer questions in total anonymity and without embarrassment, simply by pressing the relevant voting button. Results are then displayed on a screen for the whole group to see, or recorded in the TurningPoint assessment system for the trainer to analyse afterwards, making it quick and easy for trainers to collate results from several sessions and feed them back into a central learning management system.
Trainers are also realising that they can keep learners interested, even with a difficult and sensitive subject, and can get them more involved in the sessions.” TurningPoint has not only helped us reach staff in a new and interesting way, but it has also helped us capture their interest and engage them,” adds Kerry
While currently using TurningPoint for race relations training, West Lothian Council is also looking at how it can roll it out for other training programmes and business activities, such as Council Tenant meetings. Kerry comments “There are a number of applications that TurningPoint could be used for as it is such a versatile and easy to use system for example to capture comments and opinions during tenants meetings, especially from those not confident enough to speak up in a group situation”. Support Services is also looking at using the technology for management meetings and attitude surveys to gather and analyse data from large groups of people.
TurningPoint from Turning Technologies integrates with all of the major learning management systems (LMS), as well as Office management tools, such as PowerPoint and Excel to make it easy for learning and development teams to use handsets throughout an organisation with minimal training.
Steljes recently signed a five-year exclusive distribution deal with Turning Technologies, the manufacturer of TurningPoint, the award winning interactive response system.