2 Ways to Improve Your Training Now

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Target Specialty Products has offered training and education programs to its customers, both online and in-person, for years. Through the COVID-19 pandemic and onward, the company has taken strides to enhance its training delivery options.

Heather Alonso is the training manager at Target Specialty Products. She has worked for the distributor the past six years and has prior training management experience with two large pest control companies. She began her pest control journey by receiving a degree in agriculture from Clemson University.

Alonso is enjoying the opportunity to find training solutions that work for companies of all size, scope and geographical location.

“Every state is going to have continuing education requirements, and we certainly want to meet those standards and help folks get their licenses renewed, but even beyond checking that box, we really want to make sure that we are providing usable training,” Alonso said. “We try very hard to make sure that our content is fresh and up-to-date and that it’s being delivered in the most palatable way.”

One of the main education platforms that Target Specialty Products utilizes is called myLearning. This learning management system (LMS) has been the company’s online solution for the past few years. It was especially useful due to restrictions that COVID-19 placed on in-person-learning. “Anyone who purchases from Target Specialty Products will automatically have access to our training resources,” Alonso said.

Target Specialty Products offers CEU classes through myLearning, in addition to several other miscellaneous how-to training resources.

“We have also stepped up our game in the webinar world,” Alonso said. “Through COVID, the transition to virtual learning was one that was very difficult for many of our operators. Virtual learning may not be [comfortable for them], so we tried to offer virtual options in it two different ways: on-demand online courses and scheduled webinars.”

Target Specialty Products hosts a variety of Business Growth Webinars that have proven to be effective for training because they are much more interactive — operators can ask questions and get live feedback from the instructors. Also, the webinars have an aspect of accountability to them, with a set date and time for each meeting. The myLearning platform, in contrast, is more self-paced, which can be challenging for folks to make time for with a busy schedule.

In September 2021, Target Specialty Products started bringing back some of its live, face-to-face field days and, in 2022, workshop-style training events. Alonso said these will continue, but the web options also will remain. In fact, according to Alonso, there has been an overwhelming number of requests for more online content on myLearning.

“One of my biggest focuses over this next year is to build the library of quick, impactful, short training. We’ve also started to have conversations about developing more virtual learning opportunities like podcasts,” Alonso said. “We want to continue to offer easily accessible content that gets to the point of training in addition to one hour, block-type required courses.”

Learn more about upcoming Target Specialty Products webinars and training events at www.targetspecialty.com.

The author is an editorial intern for PCT.