Inex Partners Oy is a logistics company owned by SOK. Inex provides logistics services for the S Group’s grocery and home and speciality goods trade and employs around 1,200 logistics experts. Inex’s grocery logistics centre in Sipoo, opened in summer 2016, is the largest and most modern in Finland.
Looking for a learning environment that facilitates learning and improves safety at work
Inex Partners Ltd, which trains hundreds of people every year, needed a smoother way to organise its training and monitor learning. Saarni Learning’s Priima learning environment was chosen as the solution. The result of the collaboration was INEX Kontti, an e-learning environment branded to look like the company.
Inex Partners’ logistics centres in Sipoo are highly automated, and great attention is paid to ergonomics and occupational safety. At Inex’s Sipoo grocery logistics centre, people work every day of the week and around the clock. In a fast-paced environment, safety at work requires special attention.
For this reason, all those working in logistics centres must undergo a safety induction course before they are allowed to work in the area. Passing this test is also a prerequisite for obtaining an access badge. Every employment relationship and cooperation with subcontractors always begins with a safety briefing. It must also be ensured that safety issues are regularly reviewed, which is why the safety induction must be renewed every two years.
According to Juha Teivaala, Inex’s Corporate Safety Manager responsible for the implementation of the safety induction, organising the induction using traditional methods in a classroom for a large number of employees was a lot of work for the company. A dozen people were needed just to hold the induction sessions. In addition, the manual work involved signing certificates of completion at the end of the induction, which were manually entered into Excel. It was difficult to view the list of people who had completed the induction, and manual recording did not always prevent errors.
“Priima stood out for its price-performance ratio and its integration with Inex’s HR system, among other things.”
For these reasons, Inex decided to abandon the PowerPoint training and the maintenance of the register of trainees in Excel. Teivaala therefore started looking for a cloud service that would allow the whole process to be modernised and moved online.
Priima was chosen for its technical features and value for money
Juha Teivaala, Head of Corporate Security at Inex, was tasked with identifying a service provider that would meet the company’s needs. During the information search phase, he came across Saarni Learning’s predecessor Discendum and was introduced to the Priima learning environment. Priima stood out for its price-performance ratio and its integration with Inex’s HR system, among other things. The possibility of single sign-on (SSO) and strong authentication at login also weighed heavily in the balance. The final choice was also influenced by the fact that the same learning environment was already in use elsewhere in the S Group. It was therefore known that the migration of the S Group’s internal online training courses to the Inex learning environment would go smoothly. This also meant that the security issues had already been clarified and in place, so that progress from the offer phase to the implementation phase would be quick.
Priima’s easy deployment is praised
Prior to Priima, Inex did not have readily available, consistent information and visibility of who had carried out safety induction due to manual record keeping. It was therefore Priima’s reporting capabilities that made Juha Teivaala’s daily work the easiest. In Priima, reporting rights can be assigned directly from the system to those who need them. This way, for example, the guards at the logistics centre can easily view a list of names of people who have completed security training for the purpose of granting access rights. On the other hand, the system also makes it easy to see whose training needs to be refreshed soon, so that they can be prepared for it.
During the implementation, many things seemed to go quite intuitively. For example, branding the learning environment as INEX Kont was surprisingly easy. Saarni Learning has easy to approach people to give advice and things are also moved on smoothly via email and in Teams meetings,” says Teivaala.
A modern learning environment has satisfied users
With Priima, the learning world of Inex has been significantly modernised. The leap from a static classroom environment to modern and multimodal learning has been huge, in a good way.
There used to be a dozen or so safety trainers, each presenting the content in a slightly different style. With Priima, Inex will be able to provide more consistent training to its employees by having everyone go through the same materials and tasks. This year, Inex hopes to move most of the company’s traditional classroom-based training to Priima, in addition to safety induction.
“A modern learning environment is a big factor in the smooth running of our operations.”
Feedback from users has been almost exclusively positive. Users who have also experienced the old PowerPoint savota have praised the new online course. Feedback suggests that the new course is more interesting than the old one, thanks to videos and various selection exercises, for example, and that the content is therefore easier to assimilate.
The online environment makes it easy to complete the induction and fit it into your own schedule. You can also complete the induction when you need it. The fact that you can now also complete the safety orientation independently online, even before arriving at the logistics centre for the first time, has significantly improved the smooth running of your day-to-day work at the logistics centre.
Juha Teivaala also agrees with the feedback from users: “Some platforms are much more complex and can feel challenging to use. With Priima, the training has a good flow and progresses logically for the user, making it easy to use.”
A modern learning environment is a big factor in the smooth running of our business. Bringing data content and monitoring online has greatly improved efficiency and simplified processes. Based on feedback from external stakeholders, we can also say that Priima has helped us to improve Inex’s employer image,” says Teivaala.
Close communication and cooperation between Saarni Learning and Inex
Teivaala praises Saarni Learning’s desire to continuously improve its service. Several times a year, the Inex and Saarni people meet in service monitoring meetings to discuss any challenges that may have arisen and to find solutions together. The meetings also include discussions on service renewals and how Priima could be developed in the future.
“I appreciate how the service is constantly evolving and how users are invited to participate in forums to discuss issues together. The user’s voice is heard and the product keeps getting better.”
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