Looking for a new SaaS partner? Take a second look at their training core before you buy.

If your utility or city has the budget to fully outsource both software as a service (SaaS) and the daily personnel support that requires to maintain efficiency and ease of use, you’re a step ahead in this industry. Most utilities and municipalities may be able to outsource software additions and even implementations but will have to rely on internal resources—especially the human kind of resource—to support that software investment going forward.

So, as your utility or city looks into all the possibilities on the SaaS front, let me advise you to also take a look at each potential vendor’s core training offerings as part of your discovery process. The right streamlined, knowledge-based, and referenceable training moments (and related collateral) can determine whether you hit the ground running with your new initiative or have problems right out of the gate.

Here's what to look for from my nearly two decades overseeing the build and execution of training & processes:

• It’s easy to understand without context: Most builders of training modules will copy/paste language into a slide deck and simply parrot that information to their students, resulting in slides full of jargon, repetition, and confusion. The right instructor is able to sort, reorganize, and interpret information for a newbie audience. If you can’t read the deck and understand what they’re talking about with no knowledge of the software, this should be a serious red flag. My favorite teacher used to say, “The smartest person in a room can interpret the most complicated data for the dumbest person in the room in less than three sentences.” Look for that smartest-person-in-the-room curriculum.
• It allows you team to dig into the software (or a simulated version): It’s easy to say “click here” and then “click here” and then “type this in next.” But, for most people, reading that on a slide or hearing that from an instructor doesn’t make anything stick inside the human brain. What does? Process and repetition. So, every element of core training on this new software for your team needs to have hands-on exercises and gamification options that allow them to get into and experience the actual environment they’ll be working from—or at least a close proximity.
• It’s been updated recently: Too often, companies get complacent and recycle the same old training over and over again without keeping pace with software updates, changes in configuration or dashboards or even swapping out more timely reference shots. If you have the opportunity to take a look at training modules beforehand, do so. Does your 2024 training deck have software screenshots from 2002? That should be a concern. To maintain relevance, that training element should reflect dates within the year you will be using it.
• It’s taught by someone who knows the software and the subject: Too often, training is taught by interns, salespeople, or company employees at loose ends with current projects. In other words, the trainer is often an afterthought put there to babysit as people walk through a deck mostly on their own, but a good set of core training requires a teacher that has experience with the software and gets in it every single day. If they are also an engaging individual, that’s certainly a bonus, but the bottom line is this: He/she/they know the subject matter and can answer with clarity any questions that may come up during the process—even ones that dive deep into minutia.

Here at ESC, we just completed an overhaul of our training decks with customizations by industry focus (gas, water, electric, city management), updated collateral, and adaptations for geographic region. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have a question about training elements. Drop a note in our contact form or send an email to info@esc-partners.com with “a question for Rakesh about training” in the subject line.

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ESC Partners is building smarter communities from utilities work to public works with solutions in the Oracle Cloud. Let us help you take full advantage of all the Oracle SaaS options available or walk you through our personalized Care-as-a-Service (CaaS) solutions. Just send us a note via the contact form, and we'll circle back within 48 hours.

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