2. About Australia Post
More than 200 years old
the oldest organisation in
Australia
Delivers letters and parcels
to 10.9 million addresses
Delivers more than
5 billion articles a year
More than16,000 street
posting boxes
Largest retail network in
Australia with more than
4,400 stores
Most isolated post box is at
the Great Barrier Reef
About Australia Post
3. Australia Post – Our Workforce
140 Nationalities,
more than 70
languages
(22.7% people from Non-
English speaking background)
23,498 Full time
9,226 Part time
1,138 Casual
21,253
(495 Facilities)
2,959
Mail
Parcels
Support
Services 2,635
29.1% Women in
Executive positions
Diverse & Inclusive
39.8% Women
1.8% Indigenous Australians
7.8% People with Disability
7,015
(4400 outlets)
Retail
33,862 Employees
Stats as at March 28 2013
Audience: External ‘Christmas Peak Season’ casuals across all operational facilities and retail outlets as needed. Workers needed for mail and parcel sorting, delivery and retail outlet servicing to manage significant increase in items due to Xmas season.
In all approximately 2500 recruited in a very short time frame through a centralised recruitment centre
Plus approximately 700 internal “head office volunteers” who go out to the operational facilities for 3-5 shifts
The requirement was to continue to provide induction training on health and Safety, Ethics and Conduct to everyone, but in a different way
Pre-start induction and other necessary content for audiences such as:
Agency casuals – who aren’t recruited via the central recruitment team
all permanent staff
all contractor staff
3rd party workers who represent Australia Post but are not employed by us eg Messenger Post Deliver drivers, wholly owned subsiduaries (eg Star Track) and Licensed Post Office staff (over 3000 outlets are Licensed operations and not Company owned)
soon-to-be permanent employees hired on an initial 3 month agency contract – therefore not employees and no access to on-premise system. Very prevalent for example in WA where labour market is very competitive due to mining boom. All new truck and van drivers for example are recruited on a 3 month agency contract before becoming permanent employees – many don’t ever make it to that stage
2 elearning training courses on “Introduction to Operational Facilities” and “Regulatory content on Ethics, Security and Fraud, HDB etc”
This content was previously trained face-to-face (and many many individual sessions conducted via L&D trainers).
This was conducted on day 1 at the beginning of their first shift – and on the clock payroll wise
The online content was completed in approximately 45 – 60 minutes in the recruits own time pre start. This was supplemented with an on-site (and on payroll) session of approximately 1 hour Internal volunteers (HQ staff) only needed to complete the “Intro to Operational Facility Course”
We needed an externally hosted LMS for 2 reasons
Australia Post is implementing an on-premise SAP Learning Management System as a part of it’s entire SAP HCM suite this is currently being rolled out to the enterprise in a phased approach
The system will only ever be available to AusPost employees and have been fully provision in the core SAP people system, and have access to the AusPost network this is not the case for casuals or accessible for any employee prior to their commencement date with the company. We’ll also need an externally hosted solution for pre-start deployment of training, and for when access to the company network is not possible
Start very simple
Upskilled an administration resource in the recruitment centre (not an LMS administrator as such) to perform basic file imports, reporting and 1st level trouble shooting.
The iLearning Plus Admin GUI made this very easy and training was conducted on-site in less than 1 day, with follow up as needed via email or phone (or the Tracker system)
Course uploads, user profile configurations and learning paths/course object administration performed by Seertech directly
This site was implemented in approximately 4 weeks to meet the initial need for the Xmas Casuals project
Q - Why Seertech?
I’ve implemented a Seertech Solution previously, so know the product and the team well
A specific project within Australia Post also needed an external solution prior to when we could provide an enterprise solution. I put 3 vendors in front of the project for consideration, and Seertech were successful. While that project wasn’t fully implemented, all the IT due diligence and procurement work had been completed. Meaning when I pitched the concept of pre-start induction for Xmas casuals, I had a head start on implementation
Also, while I leveraged off the existing work in AusPost, I also knew the solution would be easily expanded to accommodate other pre-start and essential compliance training for non AusPost employees
When I say fit for purpose, I mean across implementation time, costs and support. All critical in this initial project, but potential to scale as required. The core requirement is deliver online training and assessment. Even though the solution supports ILT, competency frameworks, virtual classroom integration and greater reporting and analytics – I just needed some folks to do some training and run some completion reports. Some other options tend to find it hard to ‘scale down’ from a price point and implementation window.
But I know I can scale up as required
Original training was conducted on site (and on payroll) and averaged 5 hours per session
As mentioned, many individual sessions were conducted.
By moving to online and in the recruit’s own time, we saved on average 4 hours of paid labour time (x 2500 recruits x hourly casual rate = a big number)
Another big win was a nationally consistent induction process for all casuals – sometimes the availability of an L&D trainer due to location or shift work, meant corners were probably cut!
We also published the content onto CD rom and had some external agencies who also filled some vacancies, use this locally to deliver the training. We did not use the LMS for this due to compliance obligations (it is the agencies obligation to train them) and lack of central co-ordination of candidate information.
The Seertech LMS will have it’s reach expanded to accommodate this audience for 2013 in take, once we define the collection and regristration of candidates – plus the funding model (who pays if we don’t carry the obligation?)
But again, the flow on effect of an external LMS and pre-start induction meant consistency of content and to AusPost standards – regardless of whether it was delivered via the LMS or on a CD in a classroom (for agency casuals for example)
When preparing this case study, I was asked “What surprised you about Seertech - good or bad?” Good first - I was able to utilise a general administration person and have them upskilled to perform basic tasks. File imports and managing any errors, reporting, basic 1st level support. This was a huge win for me as I was unable to use my BAU admin team for this project so needed to upskill a project resource
And to be honest, nothing Bad as such. One opportunity is simply regarding on-the-ground support locally. They are very good at support in general via the Tracker, email or even phone if needed, but I had an unexpected mid-project need to train a new administrator in the recruitment centre. The original person’s secondment was terminated by the business and he had to go back to being a Postie!! So, rather than fly down the Seertech implementer, I had to run a ½ day training session very quickly – lucky I sort of knew what was needed, but that also points to how simple the ilearning product can make basic transactions
The results for this project speak glowingly in trying something different – and in a short time frame. There were a few risks, especially given the diversity of the audience. Many recruits have English as a second language and low PC literacy skills Work with the Trainers and keep them actively involved – many Operational trainers really love being the ‘spruiker of information’ and can fell threatened by online learning. They see themselves as the experts and will pick holes in your content as best they can They also raise questions regarding how they can be sure that the recruit who turns up on day 1, was the person who actually completed the training – they didn’t see them complete it, so can be sceptical
Facility Managers love it - They can get a recruit working 4 hours quicker – big endorsers
Are there more statistics on the success criteria you can provide?
What are the next steps - for example, are you looking to extend this training?
Is there anything you would have done differently?
