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Employee Home School

Continuing education for employees can be costly. So, too, can employing undereducated staff members. To keep employees current and save money on staff training, the AlliedSignal Employee Health & Fitness Center uses its own employees as a resource in its Internal Cross Training program. Staff members hold monthly seminars, workshops, choreography sessions and personal training classes, and teach peers in areas of their expertise. Employees also bring in current literature (articles, studies, books, etc.) to weekly staff meetings to share with the group. Internalizing education keeps money in the company and keeps the staff mentally fit.

Monthly “jam sessions” are the core of this internal training. Each month, staff members meet for one to two hours to learn about a new group exercise class, new personal training technique, how to improve teaching skills, how to motivate members and many other topics. The presenters are staff members who are either experts in the field, or who have just attended a seminar or continuing education course. (This way, only one person from the center has to attend an outside class.) These jam sessions not only teach staff members valuable skills, but they reinforce the team spirit and give presenting employees experience teaching ideas to a group. If there is a class or topic that requires bringing in someone from outside the company, AlliedSignal covers the cost of paying that person by inviting employees from other corporate fitness centers to attend for a nominal fee.

Another important component of Internal Cross Training is its “internal educator” program. Each quarter, a new staff member becomes an educator on a current health topic and is in charge of teaching it to employees. At the end of the quarter, staff members are quizzed on the information to make sure they understood and retained it.

Finally, a resource library is kept for all employees to access and add to. Staff members bring journal studies, newspaper and magazine articles, books or information from any other source to weekly staff meetings. The news is shared with the group, and the resources are kept in the center’s resource library.

By keeping education “in-house,” AlliedSignal estimates it saved more than $1,000 in training expenses. This helped the fitness center exceed its productivity goals by 8 percent.

Delivering quality programs and maintaining a well-informed staff can be a costly undertaking. But, by using the individual talents of its staff to help develop other staff members, the AlliedSignal Employee Health & Fitness Center saves money on training, while still keeping employees well-informed and properly educated.