ESR Education webinars get the thumbs up

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the UK the ESR Programme was required to withdraw the face to face education that was delivered to both current ESR Service Users and new Users. As the pandemic continued throughout the summer, the potential to re-introduce face to face courses with social distancing measures in place was unfortunately not an option.

The ESR Education team began to develop an alternative suite of courses that could be delivered via virtual training.  Mindful that being asked to sit in front of a laptop or PC for up to six hours may not be conducive to a comfortable learning experience, the team set out to redesign the course content.

It was important that the learner journey was a positive one, so the content and duration of the training would have to be as succinct as possible, but still provide the same level of detail and support from the educators.   Additionally, smaller virtual sessions needed to be timetabled so that the Education team could deliver the required number of sessions, albeit being able to increase the number of delegates from 12 -16 to a maximum of 20.

Across the education syllabus the courses were adapted to suit virtual learning, including the Payroll module to allow for it to be made available via e-Learning - enabling unlimited delegates. There was also an opportunity for the team to look at delivering “hot topic” webinars to update Payroll Users about changes to the service and to refresh knowledge in areas where we see a high number of SRs, such as Real Time Information.

The ESR Education Team relaunched the ESR Education syllabus in October 2020, using the ESR Hub Events Calendar to promote the education webinars, and the courses are proving very popular; with over 300 attendees joining webinars and courses throughout October to December.

At the end of each session delegates are asked to provide feedback to enable the ESR Education team to look at the content of webinars and courses and see how they can be further enhanced to give users the learning experience they need from ESR. This feedback has already enabled the team to provide additional content that professional Users felt would enhance the courses, and the team have told us that follow up questionnaires will be sent to all delegates around three months after their attendance so they can ensure the training will continue to adapt to meet User requirements and requests where possible.

The webinars have been really well received and are providing a good introduction to key areas of ESR functionality, with delegates commenting that the webinars are a great way to learn specific aspects of ESR functionality, relevant to their role. They also told the team that the webinar delivery and supporting guidance and demonstrations from the educators is very helpful and the team have excellent ESR knowledge – which is great feedback!