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Brightwave to Build an Online Examination Tool for J D Wetherspoon

Reducing cost and improving flexibility.

The pub company J D Wetherspoon has selected Brightwave as a preferred e-learning supplier. As part of the brief, Brightwave will develop an online examination delivery and administration tool to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of certifying staff.

The examinations are taken by pub and shift managers over a period of 12 months and cover areas such as kitchen procedures, food hygiene, product knowledge, health and safety, personnel policies, as well as profit and loss understanding. With over 3,000 examinations taking place each year, the largely manual process was becoming cumbersome and costly to use.

"The online tool will help us reduce the costs of administering our examination process. The additional flexibility will help us better meet the training needs of staff across the organisation," said Paula Goodwin, Senior Recruitment and Training Manager for J D Wetherspoon. "We chose to work with Brightwave because they have a wealth of experience in this field which in turn has helped build a more efficient solution to manual exams in line with our requirements."

The online tool will provide immediate access to examinations that are marked automatically on completion. Performance is tracked and results automatically stored using a tracking system that integrates with the company's HR system from Northgate Systems - training records can be updated without any further administrative overhead.

Training staff to meet operational and regulatory standards in busy retail environments is a challenge for many organisations. "Online assessment and certification is one way to add more flexibility and responsiveness to the training and staff development process," said Lars Hyland, Director of Learning Services for Brightwave. "At Brightwave we pay particular attention to integrating learning solutions into the workplace and have designed this solution to consider the particular needs of authentication and managing interruption. This holistic thinking is essential to truly reaping the benefits of e-learning."

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