Training Crosses New Frontier

Training Crosses New Frontier For Gallagher.

Training Crosses New Frontier – According to Gallagher, the COVID-19 pandemic ultimately catalyses change, forcing businesses to reimagine ways of operating and encouraging a growth and evolution mindset. Alongside the pandemic, the security industry landscape continued to shift, sparking the opportunity to reevaluate the way we train and upskill security partners.

Confronted with the challenges associated with COVID-19, the Gallagher team used the opportunity to re-evaluate its training obligations and offerings, with the past three years seeing the inception of some significant shifts in channel partner and end-user training initiatives.

Led by training manager for Asia Pacific and India, Middle East, and Africa (APAC and IMEA), Danielle Mitchell, Gallagher has rolled out several new training initiatives to meet shifting demands and ensure its channel partners remain leaders in the industry.

“To help our customers overcome challenges specific to our industry, the Gallagher Security Training Team has spent the last three years innovating and reimagining our training solutions to better serve the needs of the changing security landscape”, Mitchell says.

Research

As highlighted in the recent Gallagher Security Industry Trends Report 2024, it’s estimated that as many as 90 per cent of security teams have been impacted by staff shortages (Segal, 2022). With the challenge of staying up to date with product and software developments while maintaining a competitive edge, many organisations struggle to keep up with rapidly evolving security needs, resulting in knowledge gaps and increased cyber vulnerability.

In addition, research shows that businesses providing learning and development opportunities experience 30-50 per cent higher retention rates than those that don’t (Lorman Education Services, 2021). And that goes for security teams, too. With 70 per cent of employees indicating they’d consider leaving their current role to join an organisation where upskilling is prioritised, the benefits of training become even clearer (Lorman Education Services, 2021).

Training Crosses New Frontier

In 2023 Gallagher launched Virtual Classroom, a cloud-based learning platform, which provides face-to-face training delivered by a Gallagher trainer. The Virtual Classroom platform is being used to deliver Access Technician and Access Engineer courses across APAC and IMEA and provide remote training to End Users in regional areas.

“Virtual Classroom will allow more than 5500 additional technicians and End Users throughout APAC IMEA to be trained over the next five years,” Mitchell says.

“Delivering this quantity of training via traditional classroom training would have required $NZ11.8 million in training delivery costs (flights, accommodation, freight, etc.) and a team of 26 full-time employees across APAC IMEA.”

“Instead, we will utilise the Virtual Classroom platform and deliver this quantity of training with nine full-time equivalent (FTE) trainers throughout APAC IMEA. As we’re able to save in training delivery costs, it allows us to keep training prices low for customers, ensuring training is as accessible and affordable as possible.”

New Frontiers

Training Crosses New Frontier – According to Mitchell, what the team has created is as effective, if not more effective, than traditional classroom training, and it gives the team greater reach with the provision of 200 per cent more courses.

“We are reaching more people, answering more questions, and making it more convenient for channel partners to fit learning into their new remote-working lives, while offering the same content as provided in a traditional classroom setting,” Mitchell explains.

“At the same time, we are striving to ensure the Virtual Classroom solution is considered the new gold standard of training environments.”

Late in 2023, Gallagher launched its Train the Trainer program, a mentorship program that trains and certifies candidates from selected Channel Partners to deliver the suite of Gallagher Access certification courses to their teams internally.

Training Crosses New Frontier – Gallagher Train the Trainer provides a framework for channel partners to train their own staff when and where they like, with the ability to create a training program tailored to the company’s specific needs, while also providing access to everything they need to run the same courses that Gallagher does.  

Commenting on the success of Train the Trainer, Mitchell says, “We know that this program brings immense value for our partners as it empowers them to scale their training efforts without incurring additional costs, establish themselves as trusted training partners, and ultimately deliver top-notch security solutions and service to their customers. Training Crosses New Frontier – By adopting this program, our partners can maintain team skill levels, reduce costs and time out of the field, and maintain a competitive advantage in the industry.”

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Training Badges

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Gallagher’s Further Initiatives

Further initiatives to promote training and continued education of their channel partners and end users include the Gallagher End User Knowledge Centre platform, an educational, free-of-charge multimedia library available to their global customers, and the Gallagher Care Plan, which gives those with active software maintenance agreements unlimited registrations to online End User training courses at no additional cost.

Mitchell says, “These initiatives have helped our customers thrive in an increasingly competitive environment, demonstrating the transformative potential of training to empower a skilled and engaged security workforce. By prioritising continuous learning, organisations not only equip their employees with tools for success but also build a culture that values growth and loyalty, ultimately leading to enhanced employee retention and organisational prosperity,” says Mitchell.

Training Crosses New Frontier – Digital Badges

More recently, Gallagher partnered with digital credential provider Credly, to award verified badges to Australian and Papua New Guinean Channel Partners and End Users who complete Gallagher training courses.  

Working via Credly – a comprehensive global solution for recognising skills, capabilities, and achievements – the Gallagher training badges allow awardees to easily share and showcase their skills, capabilities, and achievements digitally.  

All badges are verified by Gallagher security and contain information that describes training course participants’ qualifications and the process required to earn them. Gallagher Digital Badges are earned by completing one of Gallagher’s participating Channel Partner or End User training courses.

With a commitment to making training even more accessible, earlier this year, Gallagher announced their funding partnership with Keystone Tasmania to further enhance support of their Channel Partners within the state, with more affordable training courses.  

Keystone Tasmania, the state-wide industry training board that promotes training and training pathways in the building and construction industry, provides a subsidy to Channel Partners to reduce the cost of Gallagher’s Access and Perimeter training courses.

The initiative was championed by Contact Group – one of Gallagher’s valued Channel Partners who knew of Keystone’s funding platform, and suggested the idea to Danielle Mitchell, Training Manager for APAC and IMEA at Gallagher.  

“Funding from Keystone Tasmania provides another method for us to help our partners maintain skill levels and increase the accessibility of Gallagher training,” says Mitchell.

While Gallagher’s reimagined training initiatives have undoubtedly enabled training access and opportunities to more people in more places, the benefits have also included cost savings, greater business efficiency, improved work/life balance, and a push towards a more sustainable method of operating with paperless classrooms, along with reduced travel in favour of remote working environments. But as the landscape continues to evolve, Gallagher upholds its commitment to exploring alternative ways of empowering their Channel Partners and End Users through training initiatives of the highest standards.

Demand for New Training

Demand indicates that Channel Partners are embracing these new training modalities with the inaugural Virtual Classroom Access Technician course, delivered from New South Wales, Australia, in February 2023, attracting attendees from New Zealand, Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. Spaces for the first three courses filled up within 48 hours, necessitating the addition of three more courses to accommodate high demand.

“Customer feedback has been overwhelmingly positive regarding the Virtual Classroom platform, and I believe this boils down to the increase of available course dates and accessibility to trainer-delivered learning. Customer feedback also informs the content development of platforms such as the End User Knowledge Centre and the Technician Knowledge Centre currently being developed. In this way, we’re ensuring that our whole training offering meets the expressed needs of those it’s designed to serve and that our courses are fit for purpose for the APAC IMEA market,” says Mitchell.

With a suite of revolutionary training initiatives already in operation, Gallagher continues to research and develop further potential opportunities that will enable an even more simplified and streamlined approach to training and one designed to move alongside the evolving landscape and emerging demands.

Training That Can Reach Everyone

“We’re constantly keeping our finger on the pulse of industry trends, both in learning and development and the wider security industry. Three major trends that we have used to inform our strategy for the next 12 months include Augmented Reality Training, demand for short-form video content, and a desire from customers to enable internal trainers,” says Mitchell.

The global virtual reality in education market size grew from $8.67 to $11.95 billion from 2021 – 2022 and is expected to grow to $46.14 billion in 2027 (GlobeNewswire, 2023). 56% of businesses have already implemented some form of mobile AR or VR technology, with 23% of the application being used by for training (Insight, 2021). In fact, training is considered one of the top two commercial use cases for immersive technology in 2023 (Tech Journal, 2021).

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Augmented Reality

“Embracing this new technology and the learning benefits it promises for our customers; we will be deploying our first augmented reality course in early 2024, whereby technicians can engage in hands-on perimeter fence installation training using a wearable headset. We believe that this will be an industry first and plan to continue creating new courses that can be accessed by our customers in the Metaverse, ensuring that all customers, regardless of their location, can engage in practical, hands-on training that equips them for real-world scenarios,” says Mitchell.

“Training Crosses New Frontier For Gallagher.”

Using feedback from their channel partners and end users, Gallagher also plans to expand its end user Knowledge Centre library with short-form video content, making it possible to access bite-size pieces of information easily. There are also plans to launch a Technician Knowledge Centre this year, with topics produced on the most frequently asked questions received by the Gallagher Technical Support Team.

2024 will see continued onboarding of new partners to the Train the Trainer program in line with some of the pain points highlighted in the industry trends report. Since launching the program in 2023, over 20 Train the Trainer instructors have been certified globally, creating 2000-4000 additional seats in Gallagher courses annually.

“I believe that at the heart of the success of our APAC IMEA Training teams is a genuine desire to make the lives of our customers easier through training,” Mitchell said.

“We’re constantly innovating and adapting to market trends and external factors, but at the heart of everything we do as a team is this focus on customer care. This has driven us to ensure that our training content meets the needs of our customers while ensuring that our training offering is more accessible to all global customers.”

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