CPD for plumbers, gasfitters and drainlayers
The requirements: Make CPD easy.
The Plumbers Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board (PGDB) are responsible for ensuring that public health and safety is protected by making sure that plumbers, gasfitters, and drainlayers are competent to safely practise their trade. PGDB licensing requires annual Continuous Professional Development (CPD) training to keep practitioners up to date with changes in regulations and processes, new products and technologies and other relevant and important information. PGDB needed a solution for online CPD training for those that could not attend an in-person CPD training to maintain their license.
PGDB were exploring ways to improve their existing platform, with the goal to improve the online CPD experience by creating a more user-friendly platform for practitioners to access, that was interactive, intuitive, and mobile friendly.
PGDB were looking for alternative platforms on the open market. A key requirement was the integration into its existing practitioner site, to make it easy for practitioners to use a single login and website to access and avoid jumping between platforms.
Other requirements included a simple and easy to use platform for practitioners, consideration of those who may not be used to online learning, daily reporting on completion rates, the ability to start and come back at another time, and mobile friendly.
The solution: A practical and integrated approach
How.io is a new learning campaign platform designed for practical training initiatives. The platform was adopted to deliver CPD training that included up to an hour of slides, images, quizzes and videos. PGDB worked with subject matter experts and a designer to condense a 2-hour roadshow presentation into a simple but powerful learning experience that delivered the key outcomes while being accessible, easy to use, fast to load and mobile friendly.
The How.io API was integrated into the existing practitioner site with an innovative Single Sign On (SSO) solution so practitioners could complete the CPD training from a website they already use. The experience is mobile friendly and designed to feel more like social media than eLearning. A simple interface makes it easy for non-technical users to focus on the content, rather than trying to work out how to drive the application.
Practitioners can also pause whenever they want and close the browser. To carry on where they left off, they can simply click on the button again in the practitioner site or reopen the link.
The takeaways: Practitioners like it to be simple
A survey was conducted with the near 2,500 practitioners who had completed the online CPD training. 77.5% of respondents found it easy to access, and 20% found it neither easy or hard.
The most popular sections were around the code updates and changes to regulations. Practitioners want to stay up to date with the changes that affect their jobs. Practitioners said they found online CPD training a good alternative to in-person roadshows, with 78% saying they would choose online next year.
Practitioners noted some additional areas they’d like to see in the future include new products, changes in the industry, certification requirements and new technologies.
Survey respondents suggested tailoring the content to suit the practitioner, i.e. plumbers may or may not need to know the same requirements as drainlayers.
How.io supports personalisation and customisation of learning campaigns, where content can be filtered and branched to optimise the learning load.
If PGDB continues to use the platform in the future, we’d look to develop CPD campaigns that are responsive to the learners’ needs. We’d also look at breaking up the campaign