Easy Guides Australia Pty Ltd, Ringwood North, VIC

Easy Guides How it all began W hen James Tennant taught factory workers how to read and speak English, he noticed a problem. There were no easy-to-read training books to help workers get their licences for forklifts, dogging, rigging, scaffolding and cranes. So James founded Easy Guides in 1996. To begin with, he ran Easy Guides from a small office at home. Since then, Easy Guides has grown to become a leading publisher of picture-based training materials. The main clients are RTOs that use Easy Guides to help their students get high risk work licenses and other industrial qualifications. Under the WHS/OHS Act, employers have a 'duty of care' to make sure workers are trained to use plant and machinery safely and without risk to themselves or others. Easy Guides provides 'duty of care' training materials where formal qualifications are not required. James completed his Master of Arts with a study of readability (how easy it is to read a passage of text). He showed that through pictures and plain English, documents can keep their meaning but be easier to read. As the company has grown, the principles of simple communication has been applied to creating DVDs, multimedia presentations and online learning programs. The growth of Easy Guides comes from this knowledge and the large network of contacts Easy Guides has built in industry and government. Easy Guides are also in demand because trainers and students find the training books easy to use. With short words and lots of pictures, students find the books easy to understand.