Meridium Launches Distance Learning Programs to Confront Skilled Worker Shortage and Aid Career Advancement

ROANOKE, Va., May 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Amid heightened industry demand to develop and retain skilled engineers and other professionals, Meridium®, Inc. (www.meridium.com), a global leader in asset performance management (APM) software and services, today announced that the Meridium Institute, which supports software training, certification and education, will offer new distance learning programs to help users build, develop and diversify their skills with Meridium software. Meridium's internet-based Virtual Instructor-Led Training (VILT) allows users to receive training wherever they are, helping them become more efficient and effective in achieving their organization's business goals.

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Meridium today also announced enhancements to its certification program that will help individual users solidify and demonstrate their APM expertise while driving organizations to identify areas of strength and weakness. The Meridium Certification Program offers a highly flexible environment that allows clients to develop a customizable approach that matches the needs of their business and employees. 

With workers retiring in record numbers, employee retention rates dropping, and more new college graduates seeking career opportunities outside of manufacturing, the task of finding and keeping a technology-savvy workforce has been elevated to a C-suite concern. By offering continuous education programs and metric-based certifications, employers worldwide can better attract and retain skilled labor pools.

"Today, employees have less time than ever for formalized learning, but are expected to perform at high levels of proficiency," said Bonz Hart, Meridium CEO. "The plant of the future will require a skilled workforce, and as employers compete for workers, offering continuous education programs and metric-based certifications will be an absolute must-have in order to effectively entice and hold on to the best talent."

According to a Booz & Company study¹, poor user adoption of business transformation programs results from failure to prepare the organization to accept, absorb and adopt new capabilities. Specifically, ineffective training and communication were cited as major contributors. Surveys also indicate that 40 percent of employees who receive poor job training leave their positions within the first year, naming the lack of skills training and development as the principal reason for moving on. 

Meridium's training approach enhances overall user adoption and capabilities by combining a mixture of traditional instructor-led classroom training supplemented with Meridium VILT distance-eLearning  and on-the-job coaching to provide challenging growth opportunities for their workers.

The new Meridium VILT distance learning program brings the classroom to the user, offering a dynamic, real-time, visual, audio, and computer screen interaction between instructor and students. Delivered in convenient three- to-four hour sessions over a series of days or weeks in the convenience of home or office, Meridium VILT will remove travel barriers and optimize productivity by allowing participants to continue their normal job functions for a portion of the same days as training is scheduled. VILT will allow users with existing Meridium experience to continue their education, prepare for certification, and maximize Meridium software capabilities regardless of their location.

Registration for Meridium VILT courses is now open. Listings, schedules and other information about the Open Enrollment courses can be found here: https://www.meridium.com/solutions/training-options/open-enrollment-schedule.

"The return-on-investment associated with Meridium software is not realized simply by owning it, but rather through teams of client employees using it efficiently," Hart said. "Meridium's distance learning program supports a continuous education process to meet the lifecycle requirements of our user community, and can play a significant role in their career advancement."

¹http://www.booz.com/media/uploads/BoozCo-Business-Value-Realization-Transformation-Programs.pdf

About Meridium
Meridium was founded in 1993 to help asset-intensive companies improve the health and performance of their assets, and pioneered the vision, software and technology to help them achieve this with the introduction of Asset Performance Management (APM). Today, Meridium serves over 170 market-leading companies in seven different languages with over 1,000 licensed sites in more than 70 countries globally. www.meridium.com

SOURCE Meridium Inc.