At the annual European Retail Awards 2006, held at the Birmingham NEC Hilton on June 6th 2006, leading UK DIY retailer B&Q and e-Learning company Copia claimed first prize.
The award was given for 'Best use of Technology for Employee Development'. It was in recognition of the success of their EPoS e-Learning solution, which was used to train and support over 25,000 B&Q staff during the implementation of a new Electronic Point of Sale system earlier in 2006. The e-Learning programme, developed by Copia for B&Q has transformed the way B&Q employees learn checkout and back-office systems, through customer-facing simulations. In that system, till transactions, customer service and process training are combined in a safe, realistic environment. The project has reduced training time for new employees, providing a sustainable, measurable and consistent method of training and it has proved highly successful with learners.
