Instant Checkmate Announces Internal Professional Development Program

Las Vegas, NV -- (SBWIRE) -- 12/14/2012 -- Headquartered in San Diego, CA, online background check company Instant Checkmate, has recently launched their corporate professional development program. This initiative is designed to enhance existing professional knowledge and skills, and increase interdepartmental collaboration through a series of employee-driven workshops and skillshares.

Most employees looking to expand their knowledge base or learn a new skill must seek this kind of training outside of work. In order to successfully advance in their careers, or even enjoy job security, many people enroll in various continuing education online programs in order to keep up with the demands of their fields.

Web design and development are two industries which are constantly changing. Because of this, Instant Checkmate has decided to make it easier for their staff to keep up with the latest breakthroughs and innovations in technology by hosting various teach-ins and workshops which are open to all Instant Checkmate employees.

So far, Instant Checkmate has founded a weekly Friday workshop installation entitled “drafternoon”. Each Friday afternoon, at 4:30, the Instant Checkmate office gathers in the conference room to participate in a presentation given by an employee. Staff members can enjoy a beer, while listening to a presentation by one of their co-workers. The drafternoon presentations cover specific aspects of an employee’s job, their role within the company, and usually involve some kind of instructional component. According to Instant Checkmate’s upper management, drafternoon achieves the following goals: increases interdepartmental cooperation, improves overall understanding of corporate structure and functionality, and boosts morale by providing team members a productive way to bond.

Instant Checkmate public relations official Kristen Bright released a statement about this new program: “Drafternoon allows team members to socialize with each other in a more relaxed setting, while still remaining focused on company issues, and work. Everyone has a clear understanding of what each person does, and it creates an opportunity for people from different departments to ask each other questions and develop a greater appreciation for each person’s role within the company.”

In addition to “drafternoon,” the company also allows team members to schedule and host workshops on various subjects as the need arises. These informal skill shares cover topics from making an Excel spreadsheet, to troubleshooting software problems. Since the office maintains a casual structure and a staff which is project-oriented and largely self-managed, impromptu workshops address issues which arise organically out of an employee’s job duties.

An Instant Checkmate team member from their corporate headquarters said, “The little unplanned workshops are great. We are all pretty comfortable with each other, so if I need help putting something together, I can just message someone in the office who knows how to do it, and before you know it, 4 other people pipe up and say they want to learn, too, and all of a sudden, you have a workshop. It’s a great way for us to work together and use each other as a resource.”

In addition to the weekly “drafternoon” meeting, Instant Checkmate’s corporate office also initiated daily “standup” meetings for the back-end and front-end web developers to discuss the progress of their team’s projects. On Wednesdays, the daily “standup” meeting is expanded to include the entire office, and each team lead reports on the status of their projects, and makes announcements about what is going on within that department. Instant Checkmate management has indicated that so far, the company’s professional development program has been a major success.

About Instant Checkmate
Instant Checkmate is an online service that provides criminal background checks to individuals on a subscription basis, or for a one-time fee. Instant Checkmate aggregates data from federal, state and local sources which have been processed and made available electronically. Some of the databases used by Instant Checkmate include state sex offender information, court dockets, census records, county arrest records and other public records. Instant Checkmate compiles public records and creates user-friendly reports describing people living in the U.S. Instant Checkmate should not be used to make decisions about consumer credit, employment, insurance, tenant screening, or any other purpose that would require FCRA compliance. For more information, visit http://www.instantcheckmate.com/, check out our live twitter feed, or follow Instant Checkmate on Facebook.