The Importance of a Mobile Accessible Platform and Content

If you are like the majority of Americans, you are probably glued to your smartphone.  You likely use it to check emails, keep track of the news, and interact with friends on social media.  In fact, 2016 was the first time that mobile Internet use surpassed desktop use, tipping the scales at 51.2% for mobile, and 48.7% for desktop (techcrunch.com).

With this in mind, it’s important to understand how crucial it is to have a mobile accessible platform and content.  Just because your organization has a website, doesn’t mean it is optimized for phones and tablets.  Not to mention, there are 56.7 million Americans who have a disability (2010 U.S. Census).  According to the World Health Organization, there are 285 million people with visual impairments worldwide, 39 million of whom are blind, as well as more than 360 million people who have disabling hearing loss.

Mobile plays a central role in providing an exceptional degree of autonomy to individuals with these and other types of disabilities.  Mobile devices and applications can provide access to information and services that might otherwise be unavailable.  In 2013, Georgia Tech’s Wireless Engineering Rehabilitation Research Center conducted a study that showed 92% of people with disabilities use a “wireless device such as a cell phone or tablet.”  Many use a screen reader, which is a piece of software that relays content and functions audibly to the user.

Additionally, the New York Times reported in October 2017 that the Baby Boomer generation (those between ages 53 and 71) are a coveted buying audience by many industries, primarily due to having discretionary income and the time to spend it.  The New York Times also cites a report by eMarketer for AARP, which claims that more than 60% of boomers owned a smartphone is 2016, and 73% of people ages 50 to 59 owned a smartphone and used it daily.  Incidentally, age-related farsightedness, which makes screen text difficult for some, affects both men and women around the age of 40.

Mobile websites and applications have revolutionized the way we stay in touch, conduct business, search for goods and services, and keep ourselves entertained and informed.  As these services and information sources move to a mobile environment, it is critically important from both civic responsibility and litigation standpoints, that content be available to everyone.  It’s also important for mobile web designers, developers, and content providers to remember the end user – and that even if you aren’t directly impacted by a disability, many in your potential user base could be (Vivian Cullipher, microassist.com).

Making online content accessible means building a website, app, document, video, or other digital medium in such a way that people with disabilities can perceive, operate, and understand your content, even when using assistive technologies such as screen readers or magnifiers.  Web designers and developers, as well as the companies that own and host websites, should ensure that accessibility is built into their website from the very early stages.  If you’re still not convinced, here are four more important reasons to design your mobile website to be accessible:

1. Google Prioritizes Mobile-Friendly Websites

Mobile-friendly websites are prioritized over those that are not in mobile search results.  The Google algorithm change that occurred in 2015 completely changed the way Google displays mobile search results.  Websites that are optimized for mobile rank better than those that do not.

2. It’s Becoming a Standard Best Practice

Countless websites are mobile-friendly with more and more coming online every day.  Responsive web design has made mobile optimization more direct and accessible to everyone, which means users have begun to expect this level of functionality to become standard when browsing on their mobile devices.

3. It Builds You Credibility

Having a mobile accessible platform and content helps you build credibility with your users, clients, and other influencers in your industry. With a mobile website, the chances of anyone who visits your site on a mobile device will more than likely have a positive experience, and this will encourage them to see you as a credible resource for information and services.

4. It Benefits Your Reputation

The importance of a mobile accessible platform and content benefit you not just online, but offline as well.  People will take note and remember a website they have a great experience with, and consequently they will also take note of a website that gave a poor experience.  Reputation is everything, and most businesses and organizations cannot afford to give people a bad experience – digital or otherwise.

Websites that aren’t mobile-friendly are quickly falling by the wayside as our world is quickly evolving into a predominantly digital environment.  Waste no time in contacting us today to help guide you in building what your users want and need.  We are here to help!

The Best Tips for Creating a Successful Compliance Training Program

It is not uncommon for organizations to struggle with creating a strong compliance training program.  All too often, compliance training is looked at like a box that needs to be checked- something that just has to be done.  Not to mention, compliance training is often dreaded by employees everywhere.  Do you worry your compliance training has grown mundane?  Chances are, you wish you could effectively impact prevailing attitudes and behaviors, but you’re just not sure how.

Compliance training, if done correctly, creates a strategic advantage that minimizes operational and financial risk.  Leaders responsible for compliance within an organization need no justification for investing in better compliance training programs (Panopto.com).  Success is measured not only by things that happen, but what doesn’t happen – including fines, lawsuits, reputation damage, dangerous incidents, lost business, and more.  In some cases, noncompliance with safety procedures can be the difference between life and death.

Building an effective compliance training program doesn’t have to be a difficult task.  In order to achieve the main goals of reducing risk and expanding employee learning retention, you want your materials to be purposeful and impactful.  Know what best practices exist and what to look for before selecting a program to use with your staff.

There are certain elements that if put in place, can help ensure a compliance training program is successful.  The first one to examine is retention, which is best understood when looking at the Learning Pyramid.  Studies show that varying your study methods and materials will improve retention and recall of information, and enhance the learning experience. The “learning pyramid,” developed by the National Training Laboratory, suggests that most students only remember about 10% of what they read from textbooks, but retain nearly 90% of what they learn through teaching others. The Learning Pyramid model suggests that some methods of study are more effective than others and that varying study methods will lead to deeper learning and long-term retention (educationcorner.com).

One example of an effective method of learning and study is “Practice by Doing.”  This method of study encourages students to take what they learn and put it into practice, therefore promoting deeper understanding while moving information from short-term to long-term memory. Practice by doing makes material more personal, and ultimately more meaningful to students. This also leads to more in-depth understanding of material, greater retention, and better recall.

The next element to examine in creating a successful compliance training program is creativity.  With each training, you want to be creative with the subject – regardless if the training is in-person or online.  An example would be to include relevant case studies within the training, or regulatory actions that best suit the department or group of people you are teaching.

Using creativity helps foster interactivity.  It’s imperative to engage your audience and make them feel a part of the training. Exercises that incorporate real-world examples are crucial for employees to partake in.

Another consideration in a solid training plan is to create efficiency (ethinkeducation.com).  Here are a couple of things to keep in mind while making efforts efficient:

• Budget.  Always ask for more funds than needed.  During the year, the training plan will change, and you might be asked to add more initiatives due to regulatory changes, updated policies and procedures, new services offered, new systems, and management mandates.
• Exclusivity.  Review all the training entries to determine if there are any overlap of topics between departments.  It’s great to train more than one department at a time if there is a workflow that impacts multiple areas.  It’s also good for the fostering of relationships between departments.
• Time-saving.  The goal is also to save time since you are taking staff members away from their actual work.  If you’re able to produce training that covers multiple, related topics, your audience will appreciate it.
• Avoid overtraining.  Determine which topics as a percentage of the training plan are included.  It’s important to check if there are any concentrations that may lead to overtraining (ethinkeducation.com).

Creating a successful compliance training program is not a difficult task, but it must be done right and with due diligence for it to be effective.  When training is done correctly, fines and risks within the workplace are reduced, and employees have a chance to actually be engaged with the material rather than merely talked at.  HWNY has a variety of successful online training programs to fit the needs of your organization – contact us today for more information!

Why You Need a Custom LMS

Within any organization or industry, all training and learning requirements are constantly evolving.  In order to accommodate these training and learning requirements, it is crucial that organizations use a customized learning management system (LMS).  Think about the training needs your organization has… chances are, they are different than those of other businesses, even within the same industry.  Unlike an out-of-the-box LMS, custom learning management systems allow you to address these issues and optimize your online training platform, specifically for your needs.  Customization can also help an LMS reflect the company’s branding.

This blog will highlight the advantages and benefits of customizing an LMS for administrators, learners, and organizations as a whole.

Benefits for Learners:

1. Access to Different Training Resources

According to commlabindia.com, the corporate industry is continuing to show growing interest in mobile and video-based learning.  As LMS’ of today are trying to play catch-up with industry requirements, it is evident that they are not simply limited to hosting eLearning modules.  Customized LMS’ offer far more incentives than those that are out-of-the-box, because they effectively integrate different types of training resources alongside eLearning.  Learners can now have access not only to the usual formal training through their LMS, but to other training resources such as videos, podcasts, interactive PDFs, and eBooks.  In addition, most modern and customized learning management systems are also now gamified.  This is done through awarding points and badges when completing certain activities, to letter boards tracking and displaying progress – all of which are integrated into the platform.

2. Increased Social Communication

Social learning and various collaboration tools have confirmed improvement of overall learner engagement and knowledge retention.  A customized LMS has the ability to offer the following channels for better socialization and communication among learners:

1. Live-chat functionality: to better connect with peers and colleagues
2. Discussion groups: to share ideas
3. Social media integration: such as Twitter and Facebook widgets for learners to share their progress and achievements
4. Gamification: badges and achievements to create a healthy competition among peers for better performance

3) Visual Dashboards of Training Activities

Visual dashboards on an LMS interface are an ingenious way of conveying the most important and relevant information.  An effective LMS is one that not only lets users access training resources, but also keep an eye on their performance.

By using dashboards, administrators can allow learners to be aware of their learning and training progress every time they log onto the LMS.  Customizing your LMS like this creates a more learner-centric platform, and not just a passive warehouse for storing learning material.  A dashboard can also display important information such as announcements, training schedules, surveys, polls, and responses.

4)  24/7 Access to Learning Resources

A customized LMS changes everything for the learner – all for the better.  ELearning courses hosted on an effectively deployed learning management system can be accessed by employees that are spread across geographies, without affecting the quality or consistency of the training.

“Most modern LMSs are responsive i.e., they are device-agnostic, and offer seamless, flexible learning experiences on any device.  This flexibility in-turn reduces dependency on a single mode of learning (i.e., desktop learning), and grants learners 24/7 access to the learning resources on multiple devices, whenever and wherever they need it” (commlabindia.com).

Benefits for Administrators:

1. Bulk Course Uploads

The advantages of a customized learning management system vary for administrators.  Adding 4-5 users to the LMS may not be very difficult, but imagine the effort in uploading hundreds.  To add to the difficulty, users belong to different departments in a company, which means that different courses need to be uploaded.  This is an extremely tedious job, but one that can be easily solved using a customized LMS.

A customized LMS will provide administrators with the option to bulk upload users, their respective courses, and resources with just a few clicks.  For example, an LMS administrator can easily import e-learning courses in bulk using a CSV (comma separated values) file authored in either SCORM, Tin Can, or AICC format.  Imagine if there are 100 e-learning courses to be hosted on the LMS platform.  A single CSV file allows the administrator to upload all of the 100 SCORM-based courses at a time, saving valuable time.

2. Assign Custom User Roles with Customized Access

In using a customized LMS, administrators can easily assign custom roles and custom learning access to these roles.  Otherwise, they would be confined to the default LMS user roles that out-of-the-box LMSs provide.  Administrators can control the types of activities users are allowed to perform.  For example, custom roles such as learner, trainer, assistant, LMS administrator, and training manager can all be created with their own custom access.

3. Send Customized Emails

Consider an organization that plans to transmit training to 500 employees, and wishes to let the users know about their enrollment.  It would be laborious to send individual emails to all of the 500 employees.  But the LMS can be customized in such a way that whenever an administrator assigns a course to a particular user or bulk of users, the course enrollment email will be automatically sent to all 500 employees without hardly any trouble or time.

4. Create Customized Reports to Calculate Training ROI

Generating customized reports is the most critical feature of an LMS.  Reports such as learner activity/progress, course overview reports, user course completion reports, assessments/grades reports, course access time logs, and certificate tracking give the administrator the power to constantly improve the online training strategy and personalize online training initiatives.  A customized LMS can help generate custom reports, based on the need or requirement.

Benefits for Organizations:

1. Reduce Costs on Training Administration and Delivery

Having a single, centralized place that stores and delivers training to employees, no matter what geographical location they are stationed at, is a huge benefit for organizations in terms of cost-effectiveness.  It helps cut down administrative exertion by allocating training resources, thereby allowing organizations to greatly save on administrative and delivery costs.

2. Using the LMS as a Powerful Evaluation Tool

As discussed above, a custom LMS can generate different types of reports that provide organizations analytical data based on the learner statistics, which in turn helps in estimating the training program’s overall effectiveness.  LMS reports can be powerful evaluation tools, allowing companies to make crucial decisions such as evaluating whether training delivery is meeting its objectives, what content is working with the learners, the duration of the course, and many others.

A learning management system is an extremely powerful software application that allows organizations to take control of every aspect related to their training processes – from administering and publishing eLearning courses, to tracking and reporting learner activity.  A truly customized LMS establishes a close integration with your training strategy, tailored to your specific training needs.  When choosing an LMS, make sure that it supports not only the features that you need, but also supplies you with instinctive administrative options to enhance training capabilities.  Reach out to us today to learn how HWNY can help you create your own custom LMS.

Enabling Compliant Residents – Day One

OneCity Health is New York City’s largest Performing Provider System (PPS) and is sponsored by the largest public health care system in the United States, NYC Health + Hospitals. HWNY began working with OneCity Health in 2017 to advance their mission and help meet their DSRIP workforce deliverables. Since then, HWNY has provided consulting on digital training solutions to train more people easily and quicker than before, planning and deployment of training impact and evaluation tracking, customization of an HWapps Learning Management platform, and development of various training features and reporting tools that seek to automate existing manual processes to save time.

Through this, HWNY continues to provide OneCity Health a customized solution for training deployment across multiple healthcare organizations. The strength in OneCity Health’s Learning Management System rests not just in the power of the highly project-specific technology, but also in the resources that allow for continuous streamlined implementation of the larger training delivery mechanism that helps OneCity Health deliver metric-based, professional development, and value-adding training resources to its partner network quicker and easier.

In total, the OneCity Health Learning Management System supports training delivery and provides career-enhancement and professional development opportunities to 120,000 healthcare employees across the PPS network.

73,000 users with access to career-enhancing trainings

25,000 registrations into trainings

Over 225+ trainings available across numerous catalogs and initiatives

Features of this Project:

• Highly customized HWapps Learning Management System
  • A substantial amount of time was reserved for implementation at the start of this project; considerable collaboration, planning, design, and development was conducted in partnership with OneCity Health to design a Learning Management System with the capability to serve their entire network’s DSRIP needs
  • An emphasis on user-experience lead to an advanced user dashboard tool, comprehensive automated and manual communication tools, and innovative ways to showcase training initiatives and engage with employees
  • Powerful new databases designed to support large-scale aggregation and tracking
  • Day-to-day attendance tracking tools for in-person trainings designed to minimize the burden of manually processing data for OneCity Health
  • Implementation of an advanced class capacity tool that automated the process of coordinating enrollment in trainings with space-limitations
  • A tool to automate post-training evaluations
  • A built-out Support section with both user and administrative guides, support FAQs, and resources
  • Advanced administrative dashboards custom-designed around providing OneCity Health training managers a time-saving hub to operate from
• Onboarding Health + Hospitals Employees Process
  • As NYC Health + Hospitals saw the effectiveness of the OneCity Health Learning Management System in quickly enrolling large numbers of employees into trainings, it became interested in HWNY’s ability to address a growing need: for incoming onboarding employee rounds, how can OneCity Health and NYC Health + Hospitals effectively manage the enrollment of thousands of people across multiple locations before training deadlines pass? Through collaboration, a process and a technology solution quickly poised itself to address this need. HWNY would collaborate with OneCity Health to utilize a customized bulk-enrollment tool to enroll onboarding employees automatically and confirm their enrollment automatically over email. When the training was complete, the onboarding employees would be marked as “complete.”

• Integrated, seamless access to trainings for all NYC Health + Hospital employees
  • To provide the best user-experience for NYC Health + Hospitals’ over 64,000 employees, HWNY successfully implemented fully integrated single-sign on (SSO) for employees to access trainings on the OneCity Health Learning Management System directly from the native Health + Hospitals environment. HWNY integrated with PeopleSoft, H+H’s internal software, to share data and make this possible.
• HWNY Consulting
  • HWNY consulted with OneCity Health in order to strategically transition the network to a digital environment. Specifically, HWNY advised and participated in communication, outreach, preparation of promotional material, and deployment of the entire project across such a large network in a way that minimized the “culture shock” of digitizing training processes and maximized interest and understanding in the value of the project among stakeholders.
• Continuous Agile Development
  • HWNY Product Managers continuously worked with OneCity Health to determine needs, priorities, and enhancements to support improving user-experience, responding to new training initiatives, and adapt to unfolding data management and tracking needs. The HWNY development team utilized agile development methodology to ensure the OneCity Health Learning Management System was rapidly evolving and responding to the changing environment.
• Account Services
  • HWNY’s account service team, an extension of the OneCity Health team, makes day-to-day training operations possible. As experts in the HWapps technology, the account service team is continuously involved in the administration of new trainings, preparing of data reports, and ensuring that OneCity Health is meeting its short-term deliverables and deadlines.
• Customer Support
  • OneCity Health contracts HWNY to provide direct customer support to users across its entire network. Through official HWNY Support channels, employees can contact HWNY’s Support Team directly to get real-time assistance. HWNY utilizes a custom-designed ticketing system to address requests thoroughly and rapidly.