The Challenge:
One of North America’s largest and most respected engineering and construction corporations, consistently ranking in the top 10 of ENR’s list of Top 400 Contractors, faced a unique challenge. With numerous high-stakes projects in progress, this GC is constantly onboarding new project schedulers to ensure timely and efficient project delivery.
While our client has a comprehensive in-house training program to teach their proprietary scheduling methods, a growing number of newly hired college graduates were lacking foundational knowledge in project scheduling. This knowledge gap necessitated additional training before these new hires could benefit from the in-house program.
The Solution:
To bridge this gap, this GC turned to Plan Academy. Over the past two years, Plan Academy has successfully trained more than 250 of their schedulers through its self-paced courses, specifically focusing on Primavera P6 Foundations and Advanced courses.
Plan Academy’s video-based curriculum on Primavera P6 allowed schedulers to download necessary files, follow along with detailed video tutorials, and complete assignments and quizzes to reinforce their learning. The Primavera P6 Foundations course, in particular, guided students through the entire lifecycle of a project using Primavera P6 Professional, providing a thorough understanding of project scheduling principles.
Students were given a specific timeframe to complete the training before advancing to our client’s in-house program. Additionally, their managers were granted access to Plan Academy’s Analytics Manager’s Dashboard, enabling them to monitor their employees’ progress and ensure they were on track.
The Results:
The impact of Plan Academy’s training was significant. Students who completed the Primavera P6 training reported a much clearer understanding of the software and scheduling concepts before attending this GC’s in-house training. This foundational knowledge allowed our client’s in-house trainers to focus on delivering more advanced material without needing to revisit basic concepts.
After training more than 100 schedulers in the first year with us, our client decided to integrate Plan Academy’s training into their onboarding process. We have so far trained more than 250 of their schedulers in this ongoing partnership.
New hires expressed higher satisfaction with their training, feeling more prepared to handle the complexities of real-world scheduling in challenging construction projects. Managers also noted a marked increase in their confidence in the new hires, observing that they were more engaged and ready to contribute to ongoing projects.
Overall, Plan Academy’s training program not only enhanced the skill set of this GC’s new schedulers but also streamlined the corporation’s internal training process, leading to better-prepared employees and more efficient project delivery.
