Sometimes it must feel like they do, and sometimes it appears they do not. You lead a company in the Aviation Industry, which means you have hundreds of people, with different skill sets, in different departments, requiring different levels of training, all looking up to you to guide them in the right direction. For things to go smoothly, you need to have your left hand, which is your scheduling and rostering system, and your right hand, which is your learning management system to be in sync.

People, process, and technology are the three pillars to meet the expectations of both employees and stakeholders. For a vast operation like the one you manage all it needs is an integration between two systems and you will have a recipe for harmony. But the word ‘integration’ almost always brings with it the villainous ‘added cost’. So, there must be a significant cost to benefit ratio for integrating the rostering system with learning management.

Food for thought.

In 2016 aircraft operators had racked up a whopping $1 million in fines for noncompliance to EU Emission Trading System. The FAA requires that anyone transporting packages must complete the IATA training or there is a fine of $50,000. With these kinds of figures the cost for ensuring compliance is far less than the alternative.

Mitigating the cost of (non)compliance – You are in one of the most highly standardised and regulated industries. There are stringent rules about who does what, and only after a level of certified training. So basically the need is to:

• Keep track of personnel
• Identify job roles and levels
• Map compliance training certification to roles and levels
• Report these to the authorities as per guidelines and requirements.
  
  

All this requires manpower and systems. If the rostering system is integrated with LMS, then this system can intelligently track the following in one place:

• Compliance training renewals
• Send alerts when required
• Forecast future training downtime hours
• Automate training assignments
• Track compliance adherence.
  
  

This also helps in reducing manual work, removing chances of errors and allowing reallocation of administrative resources to other critical tasks.

More food for thought.

The aviation industry has a reputation that is built on the highest levels of safety, security, and customer service. Therefore, the quality of training that goes into developing these levels is extremely steep and often costs can go to four or five figures in dollars. From subject matter experts, to trainers, to travel, to venues, to ensuring attendance and providing refreshments, the delivery of one program is a massive endeavour.

Decreasing the cost of training and scheduling – Using an LMS is the perfect solution because it helps to decrease costs through the following inherent features:

• Ability to serve training content online
• Removes the cost of travel, stay, and venues
• Decreased schedule conflicts for blended programs run with facilitators
• No manual intervention so no manual errors
• Seamless utilization of resources and scheduling of trainees
  
  

Digesting the Foods for Thought

You need to know what’s going on in your business, and you want a bird’s eye view. This means you must have a dashboard. Customised dashboards take time and cost money to build, especially if there are multiple system integrations involved.

Managing the cost of visibility – An integrated roster and LMS can provide a single dashboard within which leaders can see everything they need to know. It also allows individuals, supervisors, and managers to track the same metrics as their leadership, so that training compliance becomes everybody’s onus.

When both expectations and stakes are high, it is sensible to innovate as much as possible. Since you already have and use a rostering system, it is only a matter of evaluating the integration possibilities with your existing LMS or evaluating an LMS that allows integration with the rostering system. Once the left hand is talking to the right hand and vice versa, the resulting handshake can only help deliver stellar business results.

We at Tenneo (formerly Tenneo (formerly G-Cube LMS) LMS), have 20 years of experience and 80+ industry awards in learning technologies; and would love to hear your thoughts, queries, and suggestions. Please do write to us.