AS was the case with most companies, lockdown measures have had an effect on hansgrohe’s day-to-day operations. But National Training Manager, Tiaan Pienaar, has not let that stand in the way of helping tradespeople and architects rack up the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) points they need to stay ahead in their businesses.
CPD training needs to be undertaken by architects and various other professionals, to ensure that their skills stay up-to-date with the latest industry standards and developments. And gaining CPD points (or credits) is entirely the responsibility of the individual professional. So, keeping up-to-date can often be an extra source of stress. hansgrohe’s training courses aimed to relieve at least some of that stress during lockdown, by offering a workable alternative to real world training seminars and events.
It all began during the initial phase of hard lockdown in late March, when Tiaan took to video chat app, Zoom, to provide technical and product skills development training for staff at hansgrohe. The internal training was so well-received that the company decided to extend it to external industry professionals, who would have the added benefit of earning CPD points despite lockdown.
In partnership with training provider, Specifying Techniques, hansgrohe issued invitations to a broad database of architects to join the CPD-accredited online training courses. And the response turned out to be phenomenal. In South Africa, registered professionals must accumulate a minimum of 25 CPD Credits in each five-year cycle. And the minimum requirement per calendar year is three. hansgrohe’s lockdown training initiative provided the opportunity for architects to gain two points – an appealing value-add during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Tiaan says, “It’s so important for architects to maintain their CPD status in order for them to keep practising. And in lockdown, this was initially quite a challenge. We felt this was a great opportunity for hansgrohe to step in and offer a solution that would help them stay on track.
“The comments I received from architects who attended the training were overwhelmingly positive”, says Tiaan. “We put an online attendance register system in place, which all attendees signed, to ensure that all the necessary accreditation was in order. And many who attended remarked that they saved precious time by training online.”
