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Press Release Real 18.09.07 Real: Qualification in the hypermarket: individual further education and training with e-learning
Mönchengladbach, 12 September 2007 – With a new e-learning portal, Real SB-Warenhaus GmbH has now also extended its existing education program by online courses. "Klick dich klug!" [Your click to knowledge] is the motto of the virtual trainings. The computer-based learning portal offers a flexible and at the same time also harmonized training for the employees working at the Real stores. The new e-learning portal has been online for five months now. During this brief period of time already more than 13,000 participants have taken advantage of the new training courses. This corresponds to a learning time of around 9,200 hours. "We are glad to have reached so many employees with our new offer in such a short period of time", said Jürgen Munsch, head of HR development at Real SB-Warenhaus GmbH. For a decentralized company like Real, e-learning is an ideal medium to bring employees to a harmonized level of knowledge thanks to individual training via the PC. With the new e-learning portal, the employees of all fruit and vegetable departments can learn the same content, for example. "This way we take account of the fact that we have many employees that have different levels of know-how and have made different learning experiences", explains Olaf Bursian, responsible for the e-learning portal at Real. The portal is well structured and easy to operate. Moreover, Real‘s local e-learning partners support their colleagues in their independent learning on the PC. The employees complete their PC training courses during their working hours. Every employee is granted personal access to the local learning computers. At individual learning hours, each participant then works on the specific courses relevant for him/her via mouse click. "This way, everybody can flexibly choose his/her learning times", said Bursian. At the end of each learning unit a small test will show whether the course has been completed successfully or whether individual elements have to be taken up again. The courses allow for a harmonized, countrywide employee training – for example in the focal area of customer orientation. In a specifically developed course, the employees enlarge their knowledge on the basis of uniform standards and case studies. At the click of a mouse, also discipline-specific courses are offered: the employees of the food department, for example, can learn all there is to know about exotic fruit or organic foods and the checkout staff are trained in new cash operations on the computer. The new, computer-based learning method supplements the already existing, comprehensive training program of Real with a vast number of seminars, projects and promotion programs. "We have created this additional offer because we want to continuously enhance the qualification of our store employees also in the future", stressed Munsch. Real SB-Warenhaus GmbH is a company of the METRO Group. It manages the retail sales brands "Real" and "Extra". Under the "Real" brand, 432 large selling space hypermarkets were operated in Germany, Poland, Romania, Turkey and the Russian Federation as per late July 2007 while "Extra" operated 254 supermarkets in Germany. With a workforce of 47,913 employees (full-time equivalents), Real SB-Warenhaus GmbH in fiscal year 2006 generated net sales of € 10.4 billion. More information at www.real.de, www.extra.de and www.metrogroup.de.
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