In these tough economic times everyone is looking for ways to save money and do the same amount of work for less.

Your online training program and the tools built around it can help you accomplish that goal.

Whether it’s making do with less staff or reducing costs related to communications, scheduling, printing, room rentals, temporary hires or simply parking for poll workers, our clients are using their online training system to reduce costs and save time.


Below are some ideas how your online training site can save money.

* Require poll workers to get and use email accounts. Phase the requirement in over a few years, but get to the point where virtually all communications are electronic. This will save money now spent on postage and printing costs as well as staff time taking and making calls. Use the “bulk email” feature of your online training program to compose and send messages to your pollworkers.

* Use the printable resource section on the site for poll workers to print documents (manuals, forms etc.) at home. Many people will do this especially if you explain that you are saving the county money.

* Require poll workers use the automated scheduler to schedule in person training. This avoids hiring temps and/or saves staff time currently used calling and taking calls from poll workers.

* Ask precinct chiefs to schedule their workers if you are worried some workers cannot schedule themselves online.

* Reduce or eliminate, or substantially shorten, in –person trainings for veteran or all your workers. We have clients who do this in different ways. Some require in person training every 4 years and use online training as a substitute for the “between years”. Another approach is to use the test question report to determine the areas to cover in the face-to-face training session.

* Use robo calls to your poll workers to notify them of urgent messages or changes that can be viewed online. This will save postage and other mailing costs. HAVA Partners has robo call capability; we can make the calls for you in a matter of minutes.

* Expand the Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) folder on your site and encourage poll workers to look there and/or at the bulletin board on the dashboard for information.

* Use the conference center/message board to answer questions from poll workers. This will save staff time.

These ideas will only work if you have a critical mass of users. HAVA Partners can help you build that participation as well. Let’s talk about a participation building plan that works for your situation!

Please call HAVA Partners to learn more about increasing participation or using these features. We want to be your partner in providing more effective, efficient, and cost saving training, communications and management.

If you are already fully utilizing your online training then it may be time to enhance the experience for your poll workers. HAVA Partners can also provide additional customized courses.

A veterans’ course can be created for your experienced poll workers that may not need to navigate through the basics course.

Review courses can be rolled out just days before an election to highlight important operations or changes in the election law.

Topic of the Day communications are emails that are sent directly to poll workers to enhance the learning experience and highlight the most important duties that poll workers are expected to carry out on Election Day.

If you need additional information or want to discuss how HAVA Partners can assist you with your poll worker training, please call Scott Harrington at 515-309-1657.

We appreciate your continued business and want to be your partner going forward during this time of change.

In Knott’s presentation, titled “Just Because You Built a Learning Management System Doesn’t Mean They Will Use It”, he will explain the tools HAVA Partners uses to reach the “mainstream worker” and maximize the potential of e-learning.

“Most early adopters will try any technology at least once,” says Knott.  “The problem is, to be effective, e-learning has to be used by workers in the mainstream, not just early adopters.  Many well designed e-learning programs fail because companies who build them never put in place the support structure that allows the program to work.  Intended users lack the knowledge, incentive and/or assistance to overcome the initial hurdle of getting started.”

In his presentation, Knott will discuss how participation programs – from communications and roll out plans, to involving leadership , training of staff on administrative functions and content authoring, to end user support are critical to the success of e-learning for any company and the future of the industry on the whole.

HAVA Partners is an online training business whose clients include state and local government offices that run elections.  The company’s clients rely on a seasonal and older workforce who are generally computer novices but yet must set up and operate electronic voting equipment and produce certifiable election results.  They must account for every vote and increasingly they are trained online.

Bradley Knott founded HAVA Partners in 2004. He is a pioneer of online learning having taught and designed online courses as an Associate Professor since 1996 at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), School of Business Administration. Knott is a former Administrative Judge at the U. S. Department of Labor. An Iowa native, Knott earned his Bachelors and Masters Degrees from The University of Iowa and his law degree from Catholic University of America.
From 1993 to 1996 Knott was a Clinton Administration appointee at the U. S. Department of Labor (DOL) working as senior staff in the Office of Reinventing Government. His duties included working with DOL agencies, such as OSHA, to improve productivity by re-engineering work processes, investing in technology and agency work.

About HAVA Partners (www.havapartners.net) – HAVA Partners is a leader in innovative, online training and web-based tools to help organizations recruit, manage and train their workforces. Founded in 2004 and based in Silver Spring, Maryland with a satellite office in Des Moines, Iowa, HAVA Partners works in the areas of election administration, healthcare compliance and employment law. In the area of election administration, HAVA Partners provides customized online solutions to states, counties and cities to train, recruit, and manage volunteers, seasonal and regular workers, such as Election Day poll workers. HAVA Partners uses the power of technology to overcome the problems of scale, quality, and cost related to training, recruiting, and managing seasonal workforces. The company is comprised of expert educators with extensive experience working with leading academic institutions that have embraced online learning. HAVA Partners’ staff members have worked in the academic, commercial and public sectors developing and delivering training materials online since the inception of online training in the 1990s.

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CONTACT:
Michelle M. Shafer
michelle@havapartners.net
512.567.4740
www.havapartners.net
www.facebook.com/havapartners
Twitter: @havapartners

An emerging trend in the training and education sectors is the increased use of online training to enhance or replace in-person training. The trend exists in business, academia, and to a lesser extent, government at all levels. Read the attached paper to find out why.

Click below to download a copy:
HAVA Partners’ Online Training White Paper

Conducting elections is complicated according to Amanda Ripley for Time.com. Ripley cites several factors – most of which are variables rather than known elements — that contribute to the complexity: among them predicting voter turn out and the method for determining the number of voting machines to place in each precinct.

Training of poll workers varies tremendously from place to place. Regardless of the quality of the training they receive, poll workers are charged with a daunting responsibility. They work 16 or more hours and must perform a long list of tasks in a prescribed manner.

Read the entire article at: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1855861,00.html

Time.com reported that the execution of the 2008 General Election was much improved over the debacle of the 2000 General Election. This is thanks in large part to an infusion of federal funding that enabled local boards of election to purchase new voting equipment.

Some problems did occur, however: electronic voting equipment failed in Florida, partisan attempts to suppress voter turnout used new means to disseminate misleading messages including text messaging and Facebook.

Read the entire article at: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1856607,00.html

HAVA Partners’ simulations present the voting equipment in 3 stages: demonstration, guided walk through, and practice. In addition to the procedures, the simulations include how to complete the required paperwork. HAVA Partners worked with subject matter experts from counties that use the equipment to create the simulations.

Preliminary findings from the research conducted in Ohio during the March 2008 Primary Election indicate that poll workers who take online training are better prepared than those who only take face-to-face training.

The custom simulations were developed by HAVA Partners, a leader in the area of online poll worker training. The simulations present the voting equipment in 3 stages: demonstration, guided walk through, and practice. In addition to the procedures, the simulations include how to complete the required paperwork.