Anyone who’s been to a trade show in recent years knows booths and exhibits have never been more interactive and high-tech.
Now it appears all kinds of companies are developing a taste for using similar whiz-bang interactive displays in offices and other workplaces for human resources-related purposes. Indeed, when St. Petersburg, Florida-based national electrical contractor Power Design, several years ago, was looking for a better way to teach employees about all aspects of what the company does and why, it turned to local exhibit designer and builder ADM Two Exhibits and Displays.
Though mostly known in years past for its museum and trade show exhibits, the firm is fast finding a new (and growing) niche in creating interactive exhibits used to educate company employees about all manner of goods and services. The female-founded and led company has recently fashioned everything from high-tech “membership experience rooms” for credit unions, to “employment engagement” areas for health care outfits aimed at helping keep staff up on changing HR-related issues.
“Interacting with HR used to mean you were in trouble,” joked Shannon Bennett, vice president of sales and marketing at ADM Two. “But these days, employees are coming to realize that HR is really about helping employees be as good at, and happy with, their jobs as possible. And interactive display technologies are fast becoming one of the best ways for HR to do this.”
Fast-growing Power Design’s task for ADM Two: help them find a better way to keep their 8,000 employees current on all manner of innovations in electrical contracting work, as well as bring new hires quickly up to speed.
The result is Power Design’s new Best Practices in Action Training Center. Occupying the better part of several large rooms, the interactive display training center uses everything from large computerized touch-screens, to mock-ups of various electrical wiring scenarios, to instruct employees on all aspects of the company’s design and work. With umpteen interactive quizzes, and videos of real and augmented-reality depictions of technical tasks, the center takes participants from concept to completion of every type of project the company handles.
