Microbadges Improve Training Flexibility in Minnesota

About the Project 

Minnesota’s weatherization agencies identified barriers to training new field staff. The state created new training content and a customized version of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Installer Badges Toolkit to help train, track, and recognize the knowledge and skill progression of their workers.

Challenge      

Minnesota's Weatherization Assistance Program agencies experienced challenges to training new staff that included costs and time to travel to a training facility, and limited flexibility of existing training resources.

Solution 

The Minnesota Department of Commerce (the state Weatherization Assistance Program agency) partnered with Everblue, an Interstate Renewable Energy Council-certified online training and education provider, to develop 25 microbadge credentials for specific skills necessary to field staff that each have a video, resources from the U.S. Department of Energy including the Spanish badge translations, a quiz, and a crew leader or Quality Control Inspector signoff of the skill in a field demonstration. Each badge is designed to train a user within 10 minutes or less.

Everblue’s training videos can be viewed anywhere, including on mobile devices while on the job. They adapted the U.S. Department of Energy’s Installer Badges Toolkit, creating a web-based Learning Management System to track and recognize both the online and on-site training achieved by workers.

Positive Impact       

The state shares that its Subgrantees are receiving the program well, and there is a great breadth of participation. The trainings are time-efficient, repeatable, and do not require travel. Additionally, an employee can choose to earn only the badges that are relevant to their position. 

This story was developed using content from a National Association for State Community Services Program webinar. View the webinar on YouTube.