Our client is a contract research organization (CRO – offering clinical trial services for pharmaceutical companies) with over 12,000 employees in 60 countries and ranks among the top 5 CROs across the globe. It is one of the world’s most renowned comprehensive drug development companies – their clinical trials have helped bring 49 of the top 50 best-selling drugs to market.
Our client made a couple of major acquisitions in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry, which necessitated the development of a comprehensive and effective onboarding program.
Their training department structured the onboarding training such that the Instructor-led Training (ILT) program introduced the new hires to different functional departments in the organization (HR, Finance, and IT, etc.), and then trained them on how to access and navigate the company’s Learning Management System (LMS).
This was to be followed by training specific to Clinical Laboratory Services and Clinical Development Services. In addition to this, online training had to be provided to Clinical Data Management professionals on writing effective queries and using software tools for status tracking and discrepancy management.
Through the new training approach, our client wanted to:
One of the main challenges in delivering the training was meeting the aggressive timelines. Because our client had a training schedule ready for the onboarding program for their Asia center, the ILT material of 14+ hours had to be ready for rollout in a span of 6 to 7 weeks.
As the company had gone through multiple mergers and acquisitions, there was a lot of disconnected and legacy training content that needed to be segregated into the essential and non-essential.
The blended learning strategy made use of classroom training, eLearning, videos, job-aids, and worksheets.
Each ILT session included an icebreaker that ensured new hires got to interact with their peers. Short group activities made use of flipcharts and handouts to involve all participants.
E-learning delivered role-specific training on tools required to be used by Clinical Data Management professionals. These courses used ‘watch-try-do’ simulations taking learners through the steps of using the tool and giving them a chance to practice working on the tool in a risk-free environment within the course.