Ideal municipal government: Simplify your training

One of the most important functions of an HR department involves training and on-boarding new hires. When done effectively, these processes can make the difference between happy employees and dissatisfied employees.

Training processes can take a significant amount of time both for employees and trainees. Some training programs can take over a week, resulting in a significant amount of payable hours being wasted on training alone. Governments often have seasonal hires and do lots of training for these roles on a recurring basis. If an efficient HR training system is not in place, this can mean that departments are training people all year long, leaving less time for other vital government responsibilities. In addition, the same personnel will often return for the same seasonal jobs each year. If there isn’t a proper ECM system in place, people may unnecessarily receive the same training multiple times, wasting even more money and time. For local governments, training is intricately connected with compliance, risk avoidance, and liability.

An ideal training system is efficient, effective, minimizes waste, and would feature the following characteristics:

• A database which lists all current employees and what training each has received. It would also contain information on if and how often certifications require renewals.
• An automated business process which would notify HR staff when personnel requires training.
• Online training through pre-made modules. As much as possible, meetings for training sessions can often be replaced with a written, audio, or video tutorial made permanently available to trainees.
• Electronic forms and quizzes to replace hand-marked quizzes wherever possible. These forms would be automatically marked and verified, saving time for employees who would have otherwise had to do so manually.
• Cross-departmental communicative capabilities such as the ability to add comments within the ECM system. For example, an HR worker can mark where a trainee is in the process and, regardless of department; the personnel responsible for the next stage would receive an automatic notification.
• Mobile-friendly systems to enable trainees and staff to access resources and check their status from any device.
• Secure storage and backup of files and information – even after training is completed. Digitally stored in an electronic repository or on the cloud, these files can sometimes be needed to show compliance or to work with other departments.
• Prevention of unnecessarily repeated training processes. Implementing one cohesive system, the ECM database ensures that valuable time and money is not lost double- or triple-training employees.

This system would free up employee time and ensure that the training process is as efficient and effective as possible. Ricoh has worked with local governments across Canada and can help your local government to deploy such a solution. We provide extensive support and customization and boast a depth of knowledge of local government laws and regulations. Ricoh solutions integrate with existing software and hardware, eliminating the need for additional purchases. Make sure that your training process isn’t costing valuable resources when you optimize your systems with Ricoh.