FMBX News

Fieldstar set to offer free training to agency promotional staff

FieldStar, the professional membership body for field marketing, mystery shopping and promotional staff in the UK & Ireland, has announced it will now offer over 3 hours of free training to all field staff working within the field marketing and experiential sector.

From the 1^st of June FieldStar will be providing free access to its online Industry Induction Course. Made up of 8 interactive modules, this e-learning course covers the fundamental principles that field staff need to know before starting work on any face-to-face marketing activity.

The course is designed to make field staff better at what they do. It has been recognised and endorsed by the DMA’s Field Marketing & Brand Experience Council and meets its recommended standards for field staff induction training. The main objectives of the course are described as being:

• To ensure field staff can recognise different types of field and experiential marketing activity and in each case understand how their actions will deliver a return on investment for the client.
• To teach staff about the common places or environments where face-to-face marketing activities take place and ensure they know the basics of how to work effectively in each type of location.
• To ensure field staff know how to protect the health and safety of themselves and others when they’re working and how to meet their obligations when handling data and personal information.
• To help staff understand the process of a campaign as it relates to them, from finding and accepting work right through to delivering and reporting results. The course also puts specific emphasis on the standards expected throughout, how to get it right and potential consequences of getting it wrong.

Field staff who pass the end of course exam receive an accreditation that enables them to demonstrate their level of knowledge and understanding. For agencies this enables them to prove their staff meet a recognised industry standard, and can demonstrate to clients that their staff know to focus on delivering a return on investment and not just to complete a list of tasks. The training and subsequent accreditation also helps agencies meet their legal requirement to provide all staff with health & safety and data protection training.

Steve Radford, chief executive of FieldStar said “We feel our Industry Induction Course is a major step forward for the industry. It won’t replace the campaign or client specific training that agencies can provide, but it does provide a good foundation onto which further training can build. Over time our plan is to develop additional training courses that focus on specific disciplines or skills to build on this initial industry induction”.

The course is already available to field staff as part of FieldStar premium membership, which costs £25 per year. However from the 1^st of June, staff nominated by their agency will be able to join and access the training for free. Agencies will be able to nominate as many staff as they wish, including staff on their waiting list who they feel might benefit from receiving training to improve their chances of being selected for work.

Radford is keen to point out that agencies who encourage their staff to register are not putting themselves at risk of competitors poaching their best people “The FieldStar member database is not open for agencies to search proactively. However agencies will be able to check a members training record if the person works for them or has registered with them for work”.

Return