Training Scheduling System for a Major U.S. Airline

One of the world's largest airlines, headquartered in Chicago, is dedicated to getting the very best for and from its employees. Therefore, the airline company collaborated with Sartoris to improve the way it managed, scheduled and coordinated the instructor training courses for new hires and existing employees.

The airline company approached Sartoris to build a digital, flexible training management tool to better manage human and time resources, and align instructors with trainees. The company rolled out a cloud-based training management solution, that provides a user-friendly platform for scheduling, tracking and managing instructor training courses for its employees across multiple (airport) locations in the United States.

The training tool is delivering significant resource savings and is contributing to the airline’s digital transformation by aligning its workforce with the needs and strategic goals of the corporate business.

Take off to a cloud-based solution

With over 50 training locations in the United States and hundreds of trainees worldwide, the Chicago based airline had been looking for innovative ways to implement a user-friendly and flexible tool. One that would transform a globally impacting sector of its business environment and workforce, and has a global impact and a strategic footprint on the company. This training scheduler was required because the airline faced challenges offering training for its employees. It needed an innovative solution, which would provide the employees with an excellent online experience. These challenges administered changes meant to strengthen a cloud-based technology initiative and motivate the workforce. The solution provided by Sartoris, equipped the employees with the right skill sets and training courses to move the company in the desired direction.

Building on the necessary set of skills and retaining the qualified workforce would require an innovative training scheduling system for the realities of competitive talent market. Like airline customers, airline employees also expect digital solutions that match their experience as a consumer. Modern, collaborative, data-driven training solutions help provide necessary training courses for new hires and retain existing employees. The airline is preparing for the future by introducing new capabilities for attracting new talent and developing the next generation of airline instructors.

The new web-based training tool helps to streamline training appointments and book resources for the trainees and manage availability and work preferences for the instructors, which delivers workforce insights and drives measurable performance and collaboration.

The company’s in-house developed training system faced its problems and limitations and needed continuing manual intervention, at which point the airline reached out to Sartoris to develop a new web-based training solution and ensure a smooth transition to the new system.

The technology behind the innovative training management solution

The move to cloud-based training management solution gives layers of permission sets and access to global admins, regional managers, instructors and trainees. Global admins have an unrestricted access to all appointments, resources and users. Regional managers on the other hand can manage appointments and instructors assigned to their locations. Instructors have access to their appointments and manage their availability and work preferences. Global admins are the ultimate approvers for scheduled courses, based on the predetermined approval hierarchy. The admins are in full control of the appointment tool and have the flexibility to add new training locations and courses. One of the reasons for implementing a web-based training scheduler, was for the airline to keep down its IT cost by avoiding software customization that previously required ongoing in-house system-maintenance effort.

The underlying MVC software architecture on the new cloud-based training management system allows for separation of HTML data model and application controller for a structured and easy-tomaintain code base. With automation and industry standard workflows in place the Sartoris team has focused on utilizing powerful, robust and flexible frameworks and structures on the front and backend. By optimizing open source tools like Bootstrap, jQuery, MySQL and Node the training scheduler gained value-added capabilities. With commonly used mobile frameworks and industry standard libraries and databases, Sartoris insured more consistent and transparent processes, which lower the risk of compliance problems. Standardizing on a cloudbased platform and integrating an API enables the airlines to decommission numerous redundant manual standalone software systems. The user-friendly online training scheduler works across the multiple desktop and mobile formats and is compatible with latest versions of the Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers and is accessible through the iOS9+ enabled mobile devices. The tool operates on intuitive interface and is equipped with useful tips and reminders, for the peace of mind of individual users.

The future of the streamlined corporate environment

After carefully aligning the training system with the overall IT strategy, the airline is able to reduce technology support costs. Finally, by moving to a cloud-based training management solution the company has shifted to an innovative scheduling platform.

The airline is looking forward to continuing the feature development of the training tool and extending these newly enabled practices throughout the organization. In additional, the upcoming work on embedding the API, the airline estimates to boost internal training and service levels for the employees by enabling efficient systems like the cloud-based training management solution by Nick Collins Design.

Freed from a host of mundane routines the managers and instructors can focus on adding value to organization through pre-planned and customized training courses and provide skill development instructor practices of the staff. Today, the online training scheduler contributes to the strategic transformation of the airline by building an empowered next generation workforce aligned with the future goals of the business.