River Murray Training is a privately owned registered training organisation (RTO) at the leading edge of workplace training in Australia and overseas. The company's philosophy is that 'Well trained people are the key to success in any organisation'.

Established in 1995, River Murray Training delivers nationally accredited qualifications as well as a wide range of specially designed short courses to meet industry specific training needs. They work with agricultural businesses such as the wine industry and specialise in business, food processing and retail training.

As well as delivering training, River Murray Training offers consultancy services to help businesses develop and sustain in-house training systems. They also develop customised learning materials to support in-house training to industry.

Flexible training options are being welcomed by Australian wine producers who often have difficulty accessing traditional face-to-face training options.

River Murray Training Managing Director Barbara McPherson said, "Rural businesses face common challenges in accessing training. Like all businesses, employers are looking for people with highly specialised skills. Seasonal demands and production-driven environments mean businesses and individuals are challenged to find the time to commit to traditional face-to-face training delivery.

Training has to fit in around the sometimes-unexpected demands on a business such as when the fruit is ready to harvest or an export order for that special blend of wine comes in."

"Our rural and agribusiness clients, such as the wine industry, are leading the way in taking up flexible training options as it is the only way a business can be consistently guaranteed ongoing training in a niche area. A flexible learning option does not have to be a 'second-best or better-than-nothing' choice. In fact some areas of learning can be better achieved through simulation in a controlled interactive environment than in a traditional classroom setting," Barbara said.

With clients spread across regional areas, River Murray Training has a cooperative approach to learning, which often brings together sometimes-competing clients. River Murray Training set up a horticulture blended learning training project that includes using of web based training materials.

Located in the Malley Region of South Australia, two hours from the nearest training facility River Murray Training is making use of the Willunga High School site. In return for providing the infrastructure for school's staff and students are can access online learning materials.

Barbara said, "Local horticulture businesses and schools access the materials for their employees and students respectively. Some of the students also link with those businesses for relevant on-the-job skill development."

A blended approach was implemented that included face-to-face delivery and used web based materials on a CD Rom (Horticulture Flexible Learning Toolbox).

The CD Rom incorporated technology that created a virtual horticultural work place. Learners undertook activities and tasks, accessed the resources needed to complete tasks and had the opportunity practice skills at their own pace before taking on the real world. The virtual setting included a realistic garden area and a nursery, a pergola, machinery shed and a lunchroom.

Learners were able to explore the environment in much the same way as they could if they were really out in a garden.

Using the CD learners could also get advice from experts who provided hints and tips that helped learners complete tasks and activities. Navigating through the CD materials learners chose an expert from the staff profiles on the pin board in the virtual lunch room.

In the lunch room learners select resources including information in a magazine style format, with horticultural articles, letters from readers and such things as pruning tips. Slide shows demonstrating particular horticultural processes and procedures are accessed as 'videos' stored on the virtual bookcase in the lunch room.

In 2002 Barbara received national funding to undertake a professional development project Flexible Learning Leaders. She investigated the flexible training strategies preferred by rural organisations, corporations and small businesses.

This research accelerated River Murray Training's foray into flexible training delivery.

Barbara said as a result of doing this research she now feels more confident about making decisions about flexible learning such as where to commit resources, how products for online delivery should look and how I can deliver to business.

"It was a great networking opportunity and seeing what industry was doing really opened up our horizons," she said. River Murray Training had incorporated a range of strategies into their training business including flexible learning products and services and planing to develop customised flexible learning materials for clients.

"For instance we develop interactive resources to support training for bottling line operators. This is typically a difficult area to service in the wine industry as it is a niche market with a production-driven environment and there is a lack of experienced trainers," Barbara said.

River Murray Training client base includes 40 partnership training arrangements within the national and international wine industries.

Taylors Wines from the Clare Valley, famous for their award-winning reds and rieslings was one of their first clients who went on to win the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA) Employer of the Year award for South Australia and were national finalists in 2000 for their training system.

Other well known companies such as Yalumba Wine Company and Hardy Wine Company also value the flexibility provided to them under partnered training arrangements.

River Murray Training's most recent client is Pacific Wine Partners in California.

"It's about building a sustainable training system for industry, one that a business can use to implement quality assurance over the produce grown or products developed. This includes standard operating procedures, assessment tools and training plans. It's equally about building the capability and systems within the business so that it can successfully manage its corporate knowledge, learning and skill development. Creating flexible training options has strengthened our industry partnership opportunities," Barbara said.