€1M VALUE UNLOCKED BY ONLINE REMOTE WORK QUALIFICATION, supporting the Irish Health Sector During COVID-19

When the Irish health sector was suddenly required to work-from-home due to government policy, Technological University Dublin (TU Dublin) and e-Learning solutions company Enovation knew they had to work fast to offer an innovative solution to assist with staff in the sector adjust to this new way of working. In a few weeks, they rapidly devised and delivered an e-Learning package worth €1m for health sector staff on remote working.

One Health Service Executive employee explained that remote working "was a challenge I wasn't prepared for. This timely qualification, with a wealth of relevant information, delivered learning at my fingertips and I now feel much better equipped with the skills needed". On completion of the course, HSE students will receive a university qualification, a Level 6 CPD Special Purpose Award in Remote Working from TU Dublin. So far, 2,200 workers from across over 150 HSE departments have registered on the site. It has also been made available for other state bodies and charities to use, with employees from Jigsaw, Make a Wish Foundation, Brothers of Charity and Tusla signing up. Of those that undertook the course, 66% had never worked remotely before.

"Our health sector staff is vast and diverse, it includes the doctors and nurses in our hospitals, our allied healthcare professionals, their administrative teams, thousands of specialist health sector workers to name only a few areas," says Maria O'Loughlin, HSE Assistant National Director of Organisational Digital Change within Health Business Services, "When the decision was made to have as many employees work remotely as possible, we were faced with a huge organisational challenge from a technology and culture perspective. We collaborated with TU Dublin and Enovation to rapidly develop a tailored, online training solution to help support staff in the transition to remote working. The outcome has been phenomenal in terms of scale and impact, and the feedback in terms of the benefits and learning for our staff is fantastic".

Combining a state-of-the-art technical infrastructure and involving international experts and partners to deliver content, the solution was deployed in May. The course was available to any health sector worker, north or south, public or private in any role related to the health service and TU Dublin provided a fee-waiver worth €500 to each learner. In conjunction, Enovation implemented a secure, scalable infrastructure and managed learning platform on Moodle. 

"The partnership with Enovation was a match made in heaven, enabling us to combine our subject matter expertise with their large scale learning and talent capabilities at a pace to get a solution ready to market", said Rowena Hennigan, one of the Lecturers from TU Dublin behind this innovative solution with Maébh Coleman and Marian Jennings. 

The team now aim to deploy other public-service training on remote working at scale to complement government plans for remote work into the future. They are keen to connect and speak to other government agencies to look at the opportunities to expand this successful blueprint model to further afield.  

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TU DUBLIN Media Contact

For more information, please contact: Lisa Saputo, Communications Manager, 086 701 5268, lisa.saputo@tudublin.ie 

Enovation Media Contact

Audrey Colmer, Marketing Manager, +353 (0)1 865 6469, audrey.colmer@enovation.ie 

EDITORS' NOTES:

• Rowena Hennigan, Maébh Coleman and Marian Jennings are all available for interview

Enovation are Ireland’s largest eLearning solutions provider, implementing large scale learning and talent solutions to Government, Higher Education, Further Education and Corporates globally. Find out more at enovation.ie.

We are TU Dublin

Deeply embedded in our region, TU Dublin has campuses in Dublin City Centre, in Blanchardstown and in Tallaght and, through our major infrastructural development plan, we are currently investing over €500 million in new, state-of-the-art, technology-enabled facilities to enhance our students' experience.

A leader in STEM disciplines, TU Dublin also supports the largest cohorts of students of business, media, culinary arts, and the creative and performing arts. We are passionate about life-long learning and, as the largest provider of part-time education, we make an important contribution to the economic life of Ireland, enabling capacity building for the future.

Our distinguished researchers and innovators are pioneers in science and technology discovery; play active roles in informing policy and standards; and contribute to the creative life of Ireland. Our award-winning technology transfer and business incubation activity have delivered over 400 new sustainable businesses with an economic value of almost €700 million.

With an international outlook, we welcome students and staff from around the world while our strong international partnerships provide opportunities for student and staff exchange programmes, major cross-collaboration research projects, and employment opportunities. We are immensely proud of our network of 100,000+ TU Dublin graduates who are making their careers here in Ireland and in 70 countries worldwide.

Joining the ranks of exceptional technological universities around the world, TU Dublin is planning an exciting future... Infinite Possibilities. https://www.tudublin.ie/