Stephen Hawking famously said that “intelligence is the ability to adapt to change”. Covid-19 has undoubtedly forced significant change on the world we live and work in, but it has also been a catalyst for innovation, collaboration and flexibility.
For our business, it has allowed us to experience, and be genuinely surprised by, the efficiencies that can be gained through technology and remote working.
At Mintra Group, we develop online learning and crew management solutions for our customers, primarily in the energy and maritime sectors. As a result of Covid-19, many of our system users are classed as key workers and we wanted to assist them in setting up remotely and aiding our customers’ business continuity.
We did this by providing free health awareness eLearning courses. More than 11,000 people have now enrolled on these courses, which led to a commendation by the Scottish Parliament for our “efforts to best educate people to stop the spread of the virus”.
Trainingportal, our learning and competence management system, has been central to our lockdown activities. It provided early visibility of a downward trend in classroom training and allowed us to quickly respond with an enhanced Virtual Classroom offering.
The new functionality was demonstrated to our customers and partners via webinars and we have been able to provide a viable alternative to physical attendance. It has enabled our customers to continue operating and provide workers with critical training.
As with many companies, we have quickly adopted webinars as a replacement for face-to-face presentations and product releases. It has been amazing how technology can bring together our teams, customers and partners from around the world to engage and collaborate.
In June we launched our second industry initiative, our Skilled Worker Portal (SWP).
Accessed through
trainingportal.com/skilledworkers
, we selected 15 of our most popular eLearning courses used in the energy industry and made them available for free to workers who have been furloughed or made redundant.
The SWP received backing from Scottish Enterprise and Oil and Gas UK chief executive Deirdre Michie who said: “We know that oil and gas will be required as part of our energy mix for decades to come, so retaining skills will be key to ensuring the sector can quickly recover and realise new opportunities through an accelerated transition to a low carbon economy.” This has led to a further commendation in the Scottish Parliament for a “positive initiative at a time when there is so much uncertainty”.
As restrictions ease, we released two new return to work eLearning courses to help managers and their employees with effective decision-making on hygiene control and distancing techniques.
At Mintra, we have been fortunate that our team adapted well to the challenges of remote working and that our operation has, with the help of technology, continued to deliver physically apart, but virtually together.
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