WernerCo gives distributors a lift with ladder learning
WernerCo partners with Bluevolt on e-learning ladder safety course.
BlueVolt has implemented its e-Learning platform for WernerCo – a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of consumer and professional products for climbing, fall protection and storage – to educate its distributors about selecting and safely using the Greenville, Pa., company’s products. According to WernerCo, the company sells approximately 85 percent of the ladders bought annually in North America.
“We began investing in online training as early as 2009. The early online educational efforts didn’t meet our learners where the work was,” said EJ Fromer, Marketing and eLearning Content manager for WernerCo. “With our new e-Learning platform, learners can be on any device anywhere, including an airplane, and take training. We’ve developed 25 courses across the company’s global brands, including instruction in English and Spanish.”
Having worked with nearly 15 learning management systems, even open-source ones, in previous roles, Fromer says he’s learned that training learners who aren’t employees requires a system that is:
- mobile-responsive,
- data compliant, and
- equipped with a user interface that trainer’s can easily modify.
When it comes to ladder safety, usually a person’s knowledge is variable if they have any formal training at all, which is why WernerCo offers a course called Ladder Safety 101. Since launching Ladder Safety 101 with its e-Learning platform via www.mywernerco.com, WernerCo has seen nearly 30,000 people finish the course.
The lesson includes videos showing how to select and set up a ladder, and how to select the correct height – the optimal staging ratio for an extension ladder, for example, is 4:1 (i.e., for every four feet in ladder height, the ladder must be one foot away from vertical).
While a WernerCo course about pump-jack safety might tally merely 1,000 course completions, the course can still be a success. Pump jacks are simply a smaller percentage of the company’s total product offering. WernerCo also evaluates training in terms of how learners react, what they learned, which behaviors they’ve changed and what benefits the company is deriving.
“Training is a tool for selling to our channels, which vary in their interest and buying patterns,” said Fromer. “Online training can be an integral part of a company’s strategy for product marketing, too.”
Douglas Gastich, president of BlueVolt, added, “If, for example, WernerCo launches a new fall-protection product, they can use our platform to send and track an online training module to distributors ahead of the launch. Distributors are prepared with the product benefits and can share what they’ve learned with contractors, so WernerCo makes a sale.”
WernerCo is a privately owned, fully-integrated, international manufacturer and distributor of access products, fall protection equipment, secure storage systems and light duty construction equipment. WernerCo’s business model and growth is defined by innovation and continuous improvement of the products, processes and services they deliver. WernerCo products are "Trusted Everywhere Work Gets Done!" For a full list of industry leading global brands, visit www.wernerworldwide.com.
Founded in 2002, BlueVolt is a Portland-based eLearning solutions company that increases sales, builds brand affinity and enhances employee productivity for channel-oriented organizations. Along with its learning management system, the company offers a range of client-focused services, including course and curriculum development, strategic support, channel-training innovations, and software integrations that make learning a strategic asset.
BlueVolt serves channel-based industries that recognize training as a business strategy, including organizations in the skilled trades and SaaS providers. To learn more, visit www.bluevolt.com.
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