Identifying training needs
| Pages | 4-4 |
| Published date | 01 January 2006 |
| Date | 01 January 2006 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14754390680000853 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
4Volume 5 Issue 2 January/February 2006
e-HR
,
How technology is changing the way HR works
Identifying training needs
I
n January 2005, UK construction
company Balfour Beatty Utilities
signed with Snowdrop, an HR and
payroll software provider, to replace its
training administration databases,
centralize the training process and
allow line managers to remotely access
training information.
The software helps to manage all staff
training and ensure compliance with
health and safety legislation. It’s also
centralized the training process, so
training information is kept accurate and
up-to-date and the training and
development team can work more
efficiently. The software allows HR to
spend more time on strategic issues and
less on administration, while the
centralized system also provides other
departments with information about
what’s happening across the business.
Providing valuable training
Ensuring staff have the right
qualifications is vital for Balfour Beatty
Utilities to operate effectively and
comply with UK health and safety
legislation. Non-compliance would result
in the organization losing its license. In
1991, the UK government introduced
the New Roads and Street Works Act,
which means all utility sector employees
have to complete modular training
courses and renew such qualifications
every five years.
From the employer’s point of view
it’s critical that the HR team knows who
is qualified and to what level so it can
send the right people to the right tasks.
As legislation is regularly updated,
training databases need to be flexible
and kept in line with the latest
requirements for compliance. As new
legislation is drafted, employee training
needs must be recalculated.
Preparing for change
Before the new system was introduced,
each department organized its own
training and kept its own team’s data.
There was no coherent approach, which
made it difficult to manage health and
safety risks and monitor business needs
as a whole.
With annual training costs reaching
UK£1 million, Balfour Beatty Utilities
needed accurate information on the
organization-wide training provision, but
with many processes in place it was
difficult to effectively process the data,
and statistics from different departments
could not be relied on.
The new approach
Snowdrop installed its “Fountain”
program for training administration,
and “U-Access,” an employee self-
service tool (see Figure 1, below right).
The system is linked to Balfour Beatty
Utilities’ personnel records database, so
HR doesn’t need to retype employee
data. This reduces the risk of data
errors and cuts administration time.
The training and development
team can now produce reports
to identify training needs,
ensuring compliance with current
and forthcoming legislation.
Snowdrop provided six days’
tuition for the training and
development team, which was
fed back to line managers across
departments. The team also had
access to a helpline for any
questions that arose after
implementation.
The solution
Line managers can now identify
employee training needs and keep
other departments informed by giving
them access to all data and ensuring
information is up-to-date. The self-
service tool allows two designated
members of each department, across six
regions, to remotely access and analyze
training data.
Brenton Clark, training and
development manager at Balfour Beatty
Utilities, believes the key benefit is
effective competence management:
“Before this system was installed, our
decentralized, ad-hoc approach to
competence management increased our
business risk and made health and safety
management difficult. The employee
self-service tool has helped to provide
transparent data that managers across
the business can trust.”
Balfour Beatty Utilities is a subsidiary of
Balfour Beatty, the second-largest
construction company in the UK. A
leading service provider to the UK
utilities sector, it employs 2,600 people.
BALFOUR BEATTY
Figure 1. Example of the U-Access self-service tool
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