Case Study: NSW Environment Protection Authority

Who is the project for and why?

The NSW EPA is the primary environmental regulator for NSW, partnering with business, government and the community to reduce pollution and waste, protect human health and the environment.

With a broad remit of areas and stakeholders, the EPA Stakeholder Engagement Team wanted to enhance its capabilities in effectively communicating and engaging with internal and external stakeholders.

The EPA team wanted to create an eLearning program that would enable the 800 staff of the EPA to understand these concepts in the context of the Charter of Stakeholder Engagement and the Charter of Customer Service, that are the cornerstones of the agency.

Project Objective:

With existing course material for a 3-day instructor-led program, the EPA wanted to create a shorter eLearning program that would be feasible for such a large and diverse audience, while bringing it to life in a meaningful and engaging way.

The learning objectives were to:

• Change the regulatory culture of ‘top down’ versus working together.
• Engage with a large, diverse and varied audience.
• Communicate and engage these audiences about high concepts and soft skills of engagement and communication in a way that is accessible and understandable to all.

The Project:

The EPA had worked with ITC Learning’s Design & Development Team on multiple projects over the years and approached the team for their advice, scoping, design and implementation of the project.

ITC Learning’s proposal was to effectively convert the 3-day course into an eLearning program of a single course consisting of two eLearning modules, while infusing a regional context for EPA staff based across NSW.

The Journey, the Technology and Design:

ITC Learning were trusted advisors and partners with the EPA Stakeholder Engagement team each step of the way, ensuring the same effect and outcomes were achievable with a digital solution, while ensuring the SMEs who were aligned to a face-to-face delivery, were confident of the outcomes.

Production:

The process was challenging at times, with multiple stakeholders involved in the project.

The experience working with the ITC Learning team was one of working together as an extension of the EPA’s team. The dialogue and conversations were open, and expectations were managed in an open and honest way.

Results:

The feedback from learners on the eLearning program has been excellent so far, with the program now being one of the key programs for all staff. It has become one of the EPA’s few key learning programs and an essential induction module for all new staff onboarding with the EPA.

Key Outtakes:

For projects such as this, it is critical to have initial conversations at the very start of the process when converting complex, technical content into communication that is accessible to a large and diverse audience.