By Clare Babcock, Event and Facilities Manager at Training Umbrella
When starting Training Umbrella, our owners wanted a name that covered everything we offer. Obviously people know we offer corporate IT training, but it’s the other training we do that always gets a big “Oh!” out of people. The name Training Umbrella is almost a play on words; we cover any and all training you can think of, just like an umbrella would cover your head from anything falling from above. Well, maybe not a meteor, but you know what I mean.
One of our most recent contracts was actually with the largest, private, healthcare provider in America. They train and onboard hospital staff of all kinds- RN’s, CNA’s, ICU, NICU, the lot! This company has been a client of ours for almost 8 years. They’ve been renting meeting rooms from us, but as of February 1st we have expanded the relationship significantly.
Previously, they would rent the rooms in advance, schedule boxes upon boxes of materials to be delivered (up to 40 boxes per class!), fly out instructors from all over the country, and sometimes have 3-4 cohorts running simultaneously. At one point, we dedicated specific rooms to them because their classes were so consistent and these nursing students would be in our facility for weeks at a time, so it made sense to keep everything the same.
Big Changes
After the new year, the company went through some pretty big changes, with one of them being the training department. They saw the influx in student registrations and thought about the long term, big picture- they are wanting something more permanent and private. Their initial plan was to cram all the students in the hospital’s training rooms, but they had limited availability of classroom space AND calendar availability.
Next, they wanted to build out an entire training facility specifically for their use which would be amazing, but think about how long that would take! Thankfully, Jason Rogers and I have built such strong relationships with their instructors over the years, that they vouched for our team and our facility! They’ve been coming here for years. They know how many training rooms we have. They also know we sublease space, so they went back to their bosses and pitched Training Umbrella as a long term solution.
Jason and I had a few phone calls, sent a few emails, and a week later we had two training rooms that fit 40+ people each, a storage room for all of their medical equipment AND a simulation room dedicated for their use. I arranged for three hospital beds to be delivered to our facility, and a few mannequins appeared and there you have it: a hospital grade training room right here at Training Umbrella!
Win/Win
What makes this ideal for our client is that we’ve made it so their instructors have full access to these spaces without Jason or I needing to be on-site. Our doors are secured electronically with fingerprint reader access, so these teachers can get into the classrooms any time of the day or week and they don’t need to arrange anything with us beforehand.
So far, this new setup has proven to be beneficial for everyone. We are working together, but we also have given our client free reign of their space. It’s simple, easy and honestly just a cool client success story. I love telling my friends and family about what I do because it always catches them off guard. Training Umbrella is so much more than just a classroom space. Just ask me!
