Remote training compensates businesses in severe weather
Staff unable to travel to work due to difficult weather conditions are encouraged to train remotely and make up for lost productivity with their improved skills.
Lost productivity during severe weather conditions cost companies up to £1.2 million a day. Last year one in five employees were unable to travel to work when snow trapped most of the country at home, according to news reports from 2010.* Learning and development experts advise businesses to encourage their staff to train remotely from home to compensate for the time out of the office.
Resent severe weather warnings issued by the Met Office suggest that this year businesses in the UK should start thinking about preparation for the potentially difficult working conditions. Vicky Jones, Managing Director at business training provider REDTRAY, believes that cloud-based training could be one of the solutions.
She says, “Our latest research into the adoption of virtual technology in the UK suggests that only 17% of businesses are embracing the cloud at the moment. Taking into account the difficult working conditions caused by extreme weather in the past, that’s not a big number. The lesson from the last two years should have been learnt by now.”
Cloud based training could be a solution to lost productivity when people are unable to come to work, claims virtual training specialist Jon Shepstone from REDTRAY. Modern training methods such as virtual classroom often don’t involve travel; all that is required from a learner when taking a live online course is a computer and internet connection. This allows people to easily train from home.
He also claims that lost productivity could be quickly recovered with newly gained or improved skills due to the training people often tend to put away while at work. Shepstone says, “There was a lot of talk recently about the problem of skills shortages in the UK. When bad weather hits the country and causes travel issues for staff, improving skills for work with remote training might be a good solution to a bad situation.”
To read the full study report visit the http://www.cloud4training.com.
*Guardian.co.uk news
**Wikipedia: Winter 2010
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