ADT Commercial expands professional training programme with digital access to codes and standards

ADT Commercial, a pioneering system integrator and premier provider of commercial security, fire, and life safety services in the U.S., created a program to help its employees develop professionally by reaching higher certification levels and building a better work experience.

Driven by the organisation’s National Fire & Life Safety and Product Enablement teams, the company aspired to provide employees across critical operational departments with expanded access to NFPA® fire and life safety codes to more efficiently study for professional certification exams.

Implementing NFPA LiNK®

ADT Commercial needed shareable, convenient, and up-to-date code information that wouldn’t need to be replaced every few years—and that would come at a lower cost than a full library of physical code books. By implementing NFPA LiNK®, a subscription-based application that delivers NFPA codes and standards, ADT Commercial was able to achieve these goals and more. 

Subscription-based application delivers NFPA codes, ADT Commercial achieved these goals

“The ADT Commercial Product Enablement team’s mission is to advance employee knowledge of relevant codes and standards,” said Casey Williams, Senior Product Enablement Manager at ADT Commercial. “We can’t act on that mission without easy access to critical code information. NFPA LiNK is upskilling our teams and helping us drive innovation as an industry provider in the security and fire safety sectors.”

Search for cost-effective code access

Before implementing NFPA LiNK, ADT Commercial spent tens of thousands of dollars per year on physical code books, which it then had to ship across the country to 150 branch offices as well as to remote employees’ homes. At the branch locations, books needed to stay in the office library and could not be reproduced or easily shared. However, these copies were often marked up or removed as employees used them to study for certification exams—increasing costs at a significant rate.

ADT Commercial estimates that affected employees typically need between 10 and 15 code books in addition to handbooks for added commentary, although the number can vary depending on the employee’s specific job and management structure. Moreover, because code books are ordinarily replaced with clean, updated versions every three years, their purchase was not a viable long-term investment for employee development. Total reliance on physical books for certification studying was costly and ineffective. ADT Commercial needed a centralised, digital hub of code content that hundreds of employees could access immediately and navigate seamlessly.

Business goals via democratised training and education

In addition to providing technicians with codes and standards at a reduced cost, ADT Commercial experienced additional benefits from its NFPA LiNK subscription that contributed to the organisation’s larger business goals. Since implementing the online tool, the organisation has lowered the barrier to entry for studying for certification exams, meaning a greater number of technicians, designers, and managers are incentivized to pursue certification programs.

ADT benefits from its NFPA LiNK subscription that contributed to larger business goals

The combined investment in NFPA LiNK and certification testing empowers ADT Commercial to advance its industry-pioneering experience and excellence in fire and life safety. The organisation has been able to grow its fire and life safety focus, expanding the national fire design team by four times since its creation. This enables the pioneering integrator to take on more projects, resulting in increased revenue for the organisation while leveraging advanced educational tools to better serve the communities where it operates.

Navigable user experience

With NFPA LiNK, employees across all disciplines—from sales representatives to engineers, techs, and managers—can access and quickly search through several editions of the codes, identify updates between editions with interactive change indicators, create notes and bookmarks, and organise them into shareable collections for studying purposes. Employees can also take advantage of the platform’s exclusive expert commentary and situational content. These functionalities coupled with a navigable user experience make it easy for even the most experienced employees to find value in transitioning from traditional code books to NFPA LiNK. Moreover, when ADT Commercial’s field technicians, designers, and even sales members have access to years of codes and standards in the palm of their hands, workflows become more streamlined and projects can be completed with fewer disruptions attributable to code matters.

“NFPA LiNK has been extremely valuable in streamlining our costs and making our employees much more efficient in locating the proper codes and standards,” said Ryan Sandler, Vice President of Fire and Life Safety. “This ready-to-access digital educational material has enhanced our capability to offer optimised fire and life safety solutions.”