Something we pride ourselves on at Gallowglass is the ability and professionalism of our crewing team. As we have crews located across the UK, one of the particular pinch points for us is training. Typically, we employ three levels of training:
Induction: This is mandatory for all employees who join us. We provide induction training to ensure that all crew members are up to speed with the necessary skills to get by day to day in Gallowglass
Routine: This is a regular training schedule that we follow to ensure that all employees, regardless of experience and service, are up to speed with the newest procedures and processes.
Specific skills: These sessions are organised for employees that are looking to progress in their careers by expanding their skill set and advancing their knowledge in certain areas. These can be done, either at the request of the employee or suggested by senior crew managers.
In this article, we take a look at how you can develop a strong training programme to cater to remote working employees.
Establish Clear Goals and Objectives
If you’re training for training’s sake, chances are there is something not quite right with the programme. From the outset, it’s imperative to have clear goals in mind of what you want the training to achieve; then you can work backwards to develop the how, when and where etc. For example, as a company that employs people across the UK, and needs to ensure the safety of each employee, first aid training is a vital part of our working lives. In order to ensure that each site is a safe working environment and that if any accidents were to happen, that our crew would know what to do, we provide first aid training.
Our goal was to ensure that each site was safe; therefore, we chose to work with the Charted Institute of Environmental Health to develop and deliver a three-day training programme covering first aid at work. Additionally, there is also an emergency first aid at work course, which lasts one day.
Work with Your Team, Not Against Them
When developing a training programme, especially for remote workers, it’s important that they feel included and part of the process. Clear communication before, during and after sessions, can ensure that they stay engaged with what they are doing while appreciating the importance of the training. For employees with longer service, it could seem like ‘just another’ session, which can be demotivating for themselves and others around them.
Unfortunately, not all sessions will be high energy and filled with exciting content, but including members of the team early on in the process can help to shape the training into something more enjoyable for everyone. Nearly all employees will have attended both excellent and terrible training sessions in the past. Why not call on this experience to understand what they like and don’t like? This can allow you to mould your courses into something more engaging and allow employees to get real value upon completion.
Measurement
Whether your sessions take place online, allowing remote employees to train by themselves, or you choose to bring them together, measurement will play an important part. For shorter courses measurement usually consists of a knowledge test at the end to cover all the topics. However, for multi-day courses, consider checking in with the team to see how they feel about the process, to get a fresh and candid response about the course content.
Also, consider implementing small progress tests and checks to ensure that everyone is keeping up with the pace. If some are lagging behind, this is usually an indicator that a certain topic hasn’t been fully addressed or explained in adequate detail.
Invest in Your Team
Try as you may, unfortunately, not all training can be completed in house. When necessary, it’s important that you untie the purse strings and invest in your team’s skills through paid training. Whether this is paying a trainer to come to site and train a team, or paying for a team to go off-site to a training session, this can be invaluable experience for employees.
At Gallowglass, much of our training is delivered in-house; however, we also offer a range of paid training courses for our employees, free of charge. This can include scissor and forklift training, working at height and follow spot training (among others). This ensures that our teams are fully equipped with the necessary skills to handle any and all tasks when crewing.
Feedback and Modifications
Last, but certainly not least, ask for feedback from your teams about the training to understand the areas that they did and didn’t like. Training programmes shouldn’t be rigged, so don’t be afraid to make changes where necessary.
Training is a large part of our world here at Gallowglass, ensuring that each and every crew member can complete jobs professionally and to the highest standard. Although crewing experience is great, it certainly isn’t necessary. So, if you’re looking to kick start your career in the events industry, why not check out our event jobs in Bristol, Birmingham or Edinburgh? You can also find useful articles on our blog to see just how diverse working at Gallowglass is!
