Provide a brief description of the Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative.
Jolera designed, developed, and implemented a web-portal that allows volunteer coaches to receive training and certification in a way that delivers greater flexibility, quality, customizations, and cost effectiveness.
Describe what makes this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative original or innovative. How is this over and above the accepted norm?
Special Olympics Canada is dedicated to enriching the lives of Canadians with an intellectual disability through sport. To do that, they volunteer coaches, many of whom have little previous experience. The vast number of volunteers made it difficult to effectively assess the skills and capabilities of each coach or to coordinate training programs for them. The existing processes were paper intensive and time consuming. Jolera was engaged to design, develop and implement a web-based application to allow the delivery of training materials, test for comprehension, schedule courses, and take on-line registration for training opportunities. Content is now rich, including graphics, videos, sound, text, and quizzes. Participants learn through on-line learning and exercises. A self service model for some course content allows participation across multiple time-zones at the convenience of the student. Because some of the courses are instructor facilitated, registration is possible and for programs that have high demand, the over-flow from one course is automatically added to a waiting list for future sessions. A national database now keeps records that allow fast and effective matching of coaches with special Olympians. Special Olympics had significantly reduce costs for material printing and distribution and travel while greatly enhancing the quality of coaching and experience for volunteers and Olympians alike.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s sales or revenues. What changed? Provide evidence of measurable improvements in sales, revenues, cost reduction, etc.
The impact on revenues is somewhat indirect – the enhanced quality of coaches enhances the brand strength of the Special Olympics which, in turn, enahnces the brand for donors.
Describe the improvement this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative made to the customer’s efficiency. What changed? Provide evidence of how customer efficiency was increased.
There were many manual and labour intensive processes to deliver and track qualifications and course content. Delivering training ina face-to-face process is extremely time consuming and has limitations on timing, location, etc. The new content is highly multi-media rich and allows for immediate grading of the coaches understanding. Since registration work-flow is now automated a number or processes are no longer required allowing staff to focus on more value-adding activities such a developing better content and evaluations. Coaches are able to take better training, more often, with known, measurable results, and at their convenience. Since records are now kept accurately and more timely, there is greater data accuracy and no need to rekey data into tracking systems.
How did this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative improve the customer’s ability to serve its internal and/or external clients? Provide evidence of the improvement.
Coaches are able to take better training, more often, with known, measurable results, and at their convenience. Their feedback has been very positive. he overall effect on Special Olympics is that there are more highly qualified coaches available to work with special Olympians enhancing the experience for athletes, coaches, and donors alike. Better quality data is now available to help in engaging donors.
In what ways does this Solution, Service Provided, or Initiative go above and beyond industry norms and expectations?
The application is highly customized to many unique needs of Special Olympics and their internal work-flow processes. An off-the-shelf solution could work, but would not likely have the very positive impact that this application has created.
Optional Question: How does this solution further your customer’s green or environmentally friendly plans?
Previous to this application, a great deal of travel was required to provide and participate in training. This has been largely eliminated and so too has the carbon footprint of that travel. A significant amount of paper content was created and distributed but is now available in rich multi-media on-line. The environmental costs of production and distribution have been significantly reduced.