Part of the John Lewis Partnership and one of the UK's leading supermarket chains, Waitrose is extending the deployment of a new custom enterprise Learning Management System to all of its branches.
The bespoke solution was developed by Dorset Software in response to Waitrose’s need to ensure continued compliance with complex Health and Safety legislation and to improve management of training. Dorset Software worked closely with Waitrose to understand its unique requirements and develop a solution which offers centralisation of data and allows central, regional and branch management to schedule, control and have visibility over training activity.
The solution has now been deployed in 50 of Waitrose's 180 branches. Each branch has two PC’s on which staff undertake multimedia training. Branch managers can easily access reports on the staff at their branch and the training that has been, or needs to be, undertaken.
Waitrose is already benefitting from its enterprise Learning Management System with improvements in productivity, the provision of proof of compliance with legislation and improved control and visibility over activity. Andy Gabella, Training Design and Production Manager at Waitrose comments, "The solution is a mechanism for ensuring that each Partner does the correct training at the right time. The application provides proof of successful training completion which amounts to proof of due diligence."
Staff and management at the branches are already very happy with the sophisticated yet easy-to-use training system. Andy explains, "Users love the simplicity of the system. They are very pleased with it and find it incredibly easy to use. The simplicity of the software belies the complexity that lies beneath."
The solution, which was developed using Microsoft.NET technologies connecting to a central MS SQL Server database, will continue to be rolled out to the remaining Waitrose branches at a rate of 3 per week.
