First, unless your health clubs already have a wide
area network (WAN) infrastructure in place, you'll want to secure
reliable Internet access in all locations in preparation for
deploying an Intranet, or more simple your own homegrown health club
software.
If your budget allows for it, I'd strongly recommend xDSL
Internet access, assuming your health clubs are located in areas
where xDSL service is available. DSLreports.com is a fabulous free resource for
researching your options at each of your health club locations.
Second, I recommend that you get
started with an easy-to-implement, relatively inexpensive health club
software Intranet
solution for the health clubs. This low-budget health club software will require that you
create your own training content.
Start by creating a basic Intranet, or internal web site, that's hosted with your existing ISP or web
hosting company.
This health club software Intranet would start as either a separate folder off
your existing web site, or a dedicated web site with its own domain name.
For as little as a few hundred dollars a year, you should be able to
purchase site hosting with adequate storage capacity
and bandwidth to handle these health club software Intranet needs for your chain of health clubs.
Ask your ISP or web hosting company to configure the
folder or Intranet site with a username and password that you'll distribute to
employees of your health clubs. Although having a separate username and password for each
employee would be preferable, it also can increase the cost and complexity
of the health club software solution.
To address security concerns for the health club software Intranet, be sure to change the shared
username and password regularly (i.e. once a month, once a quarter, etc.).
Also, to make things easier to maintain, request that your
ISP or web site hosting company configure the Intranet for Microsoft
FrontPage Server Extensions.
In terms of building your e-learning content for the
health club software Intranet, I'd
recommend creating slideshow presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint 2000
and using its included "Publish as Web Page Wizard".
This wizard will help you turn your PowerPoint slide show
file (.ppt) into a series of .html web pages, .gif and .jpg image files,
and slide show folders, which can then be transferred and posted up on
your health club software employee Intranet. Be sure to keep backup copies of these
health club software files on
the server in your own office.
While a more sophisticated turn key (read much more
expensive) industry-specific health club software solution might allow you to automatically track each employee's
progress, there are some basic low-cost workarounds for this as well.
You could use the health club software Intranet to post quizzes
either as web page forms, or as Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel
documents, that each employee can complete and forward to his or her
manager as "proof" that the training has been completed, using
your homegrown health club software.
You might also decide to expand the use of this health
club software Intranet for other human resources or operations-related
purposes.
For example, you could post digitized Adobe Acrobat PDF
file versions of your most commonly requested forms, such as employee
timesheets, expense reimbursements, or new hire applications.
I'd also strongly recommend adding separate web-based
e-mail accounts for each employee to use as a complement to the e-learning
health club software Intranet.
