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Volkswagen

The Volkswagen Group is won over by PowerVote and doubles the number of interactive voting keypads for training
Since 2008, the Training and Human Resources Department of the Volkswagen Group has used the interactive PowerVote voting system to train the distribution and repair networks of its 5 brands (Volkswagen, Skoda, Audi, SEAT and Volkswagen Utility Vehicles), particularly for the launching of new products, such as the latest Skoda or the new Passat.
This solution allows the department to create interactive, fun presentations, to gather the participants’ answers, and to graphically display the results in real-time with the help of a video projector. Following the success of this method, the Group decided to extend this system to all training courses, thereby doubling the number of its voting keypads for a total of 48 cases of 15 voting keypads each.
Extending training via PowerVote
Improved knowledge acquisition thanks to the playfulness of the training, the possibility of measuring in real-time the training’s effectiveness and to react immediately, better performing teams, and, finally, ROI (return on investment) achieved in under a year: such were the benefits that convinced Volkswagen to extend its use of PowerVote to all training courses and all sectors of activity:
• Marketing.
• Parts and service.
• Technology/body work.
The Group’s interactive PowerVote training programme will be extended from 8,000 to nearly 12,000 workers, for a total of between 960 and 1,000 training courses taught each year by 40 instructors.
According to the Director of the Training Department for Marketing and Technology/Service at Volkswagen, “for us, the major advantage of the PowerVote solution is its flexibility and ability to evolve. And, above all, the system allows us, thanks to the possibility of modulating the frequencies, to simultaneously evaluate the participants’ knowledge acquisition in all 14 rooms of our training centre. Isn’t that incredible?”
An even more intensive use of the system
For next year, the Group plans on optimising the use of PowerVote by confirming each step of the training programme. This would allow instructors to verify knowledge acquisition and continually adapt their courses to their classes.
Internet-based quizzes are also planned.
About Volkswagen France
Created in 1960, the distribution company Volkswagen defends the interests of Volkswagen AG throughout the country and markets the products of the Group’s five makes: Volkswagen, Skoda (since 1991), Audi (since 1965), SEAT (since 1986) and Volkswagen Utility Vehicles, as well as these makes exchange parts, components and accessories. 5,200 vehicles sold in 1960, year of the Group’s creation, and over 230,000 sold in 2003 (137,800 for Volkswagen, 14,000 for Skoda, 41,300 for Audi and 37,400 for SEAT). The one thousand points of sale and service that constitute the Group’s network employ over 16,000 people.
For more information: http://www.volkswagen.com

ENVL – National Veterinary School of Lyon

In 2004, ENVL, as part of its policy to modernize its teaching methods via the use of ICTE (Information and Communication Technologies for Education), turned to electronic voting to lend interactivity to its lecture courses.

As for any ICTE tool, the instructor has several teaching scenarios to choose from. In addition to the more traditional scenario of asking questions during the course, so as to enliven instruction and make it more dynamic, the most effective teaching scenario is the following:
- Ask a few questions at the beginning of the session, in order to confirm the previous week’s instruction.
- Once again, ask a few questions at the end of the session, in order to determine the group’s level of understanding regarding what has just been discussed.

Based on the results, the instructors can reorganize their course and adapt it to their students, thereby ensuring a maximum level of understanding. At ENVL, the voting keypads are used to determine the students’ level of understanding and produce a “comprehension assessment” that is greatly appreciated by the students themselves and which helps them determine where they stand with regard to their training.
Question preparation is time-consuming…
ENVL has obtained the support of the Rhône-Alpes Region for financing the purchase of 50 PowerVote voting keypads.
It has even convinced Lyon’s Ecole Centrale to co-invest in the project, potentially increasing the number of voting keypads to one hundred.
Thinking up and preparing the questions requires a significant amount of time on the part of the instructors; this would seem to limit the use of this solution. “Question preparation is too complicated. This task remains a hurdle for instructors, and so it is our ICTE centre that prepares the layout of the PowerVote questionnaires. Today, at ENVL, only 10% of teachers make use of these voting machines,” explains Sophie Touze, research engineer responsible for the school’s ICTE.
… But the method pays off
“We spend time preparing the questions, but the results speak for themselves. The instructors have noticed that the students are more involved when the voting machines are used during class,” explains Sophie Touze. Interactive and fun instruction seems to have won over these veterinary students.

A new software program is currently being studied to simplify question preparation. This would allow the National Veterinary School of Lyon to increase the number of instructors who make use of the electronic PowerVote keypads.
Experience related by Sophie Touze of the National Veterinary School of Lyon

Reims Medical Faculty

Experience of the Reims Medical Faculty

Educational experience in Continuing Medical Training at the Reims Medical Faculty: M.H. Bernard, A. Bazin, F. Canas, Prof. Péruzzi

The monthly presentation of multidisciplinary clinical cases has offered Reims, for the past few years already, a new, interactive method for continuing medical training, allowing it to gather together and improve communication between doctors from diverse backgrounds, which today’s hyper-specialization tends to isolate.

In this manner, general practitioners and specialists in and outside the hospital are brought together.

During 2 hours, 6 varied clinical cases are presented via video and thanks to information technology with the use of voting keypads each device recording the vote of 3 or 4 doctors gathered together some fifteen small, friendly tables.

The faculty plans on organizing video conferences and making these training sessions available online to gather together geographically remote practitioners.
www.univ-reims.fr/UFR/Medecine/

Fast Food chain

This Fast Food chain boosts its training courses with PowerVote
To train the future managers of its restaurants and franchises, this Fast food chain uses the interactive PowerVote voting system to monitor the level of understanding of its trainees.

Setting great store by its teams’ performance, the fast food specialist, has set up a training centre for its restaurants’ team members, assistant managers and directors…

Each year, this training centre welcomes over 2,000 trainees for 25 different courses. These training sessions are designed around two main themes: mastering their technical know-how (product composition, hygiene and quality, food safety, stock management, marketing, etc.) and developing their management skills (team leadership, recruiting, etc.).

Confirm the level of understanding with PowerVote

In May 2003, the Training Department used the interactive PowerVote voting system for the first time during the inauguration of the I2M (Management and Trades Institute). The goal was to present in a fun, interactive manner this new institute, while at the same time convincing the audience of the advantages of using PowerVote. Following the great success of this dynamic presentation, the PowerVote system was integrated into the training courses to evaluate the trainees’ knowledge level.

The 3-month, 3-course training programme combines classes with work experience. Between 25 and 30 trainees participate in each training session. The first course covers the technical aspects of the trade (production, maintenance, etc.), as well as customer service. The second course concerns the various aspects of communication and team management (training and delegation). Finally, the third course tackles the administrative tasks of the trade (turnover, markup, etc.), followed by an overall evaluation of the trainees’ knowledge acquisition. The score awarded at the end of this training programme allows the regional manager to evaluate each trainee’s knowledge level.

The interactive PowerVote voting system is used with questionnaires for the confirmation of each course. These questionnaires are dotted with “best answer rankings”, which lend dynamism to the session and motivate the learners, while allowing each trainee to monitor his or her positioning.

PowerVote a source of envy within the Fast food Chain

Before PowerVote, the Training Department used paper-based questionnaires.
« The use of paper was especially time-consuming, for both the instructors and the trainees. What’s more, our trainees being rather young, they tended to trade their questionnaires. With PowerVote, there’s no way to cheat and due to the playfulness of the system, the trainees feel more involved. In the end, everyone’s happy,” states the Director of Operational Training.

“We use PowerVote every three weeks, and since 2003, we have trained over 2,000 employees. PowerVote allows us to immediately verify our trainees’ level of understanding. Thanks to its ease-of-use and the possibility to make immediate modifications, our questionnaires are always up-to-date with regard to standards. In addition, we save considerable time and paper. Now much easier to organise, our sessions are lighter and less boring, for we have eliminated the time-consuming corrections imposed by paper.”

PowerVote has then attracted more people within this fast food Chain! Today, the regional managers want to use the PowerVote system to evaluate their personnel, and other projects are under way: hygiene training, HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points), etc.

Mane Gere Associés

Mane Gere Associés regularly uses PowerVote to enliven its training sessions

The experience of Arnaud Dubost, Associate Consultant

A consultancy and training agency specialized in operational management, marketing effectiveness and personnel development, we make regular use of the PowerVote system during our training sessions.
The system allows us to add dynamism to our training sessions and to ensure the trainees’ active participation throughout the day via the continual evaluation of what they have understood and learned of the subjects developed during class.
This also allows the instructors to delve deeper into those subjects meriting further attention, thanks to the immediate, graphic measurement of the participants’ level of understanding, and to move on more rapidly for those subjects that are perfectly understood.
In addition, we have developed, in partnership with Générale Multimédia, a training game for a major insurance company, whose goal is to sustainably modify the marketing practices of its network’s 30,000 employees.
We also reworked and made more dynamic our clients’ existent training courses, to increase their educational effectiveness. Our clients particularly appreciate being able to evaluate the trainees’ evolving knowledge level, from the beginning to the end of the training course, with the individual files indicating the correct and incorrect answers of each participant, for an improved post-training accompaniment.

For our clients, PowerVote is now one more advantage of Mane Gere Associés.

For more information: www.manegere.fr

The benefits of using PowerVote

Increase the impact of your messages!

Involve the audience.
Win over shyer participants, particularly at school.
Increase satisfaction.
Enhance your company’s image during an integration seminar.

Enliven your work sessions!

Add dynamism to your sales forces’ seminars.
Stimulate a distribution network.
Punctuate your workshops and brainstorming sessions.
Motivate struggling students.

Make decisions!

Evaluate the participants’ knowledge level and immediately detect those points requiring further attention.
Automatically carry out a certification exam.
Sound out an audience during an opinion survey.
Collect information or comments in real-time.

The use scenarios are numerous: