CUSTOMER CHALLENGE
As a company with a young, mainly Millennial and Generation Z workforce that is spread out across multiple states (and generally on the road hosting fundraising events), Boosterthon needed a way to train these front-line employees, whom are the face of its organization.
“If we don’t train and develop this group of employees, our standards slip, and our clients directly suffer,” says Tim Bristow, Boosterthon’s Program Training Specialist.
Indeed, Generation Z (Gen Z) is the first truly digitally-native generation. While Millennials adopted today’s most well- known and widely used technologies (yes, the Internet) in their teens and early 20s, Gen Z doesn’t know what it’s like to live without a high-speed internet connection or access to social media, especially on a mobile device.
They’ve grown up in a world of constant connectivity, instant information and remote learning, resulting in a vastly different approach to the way they approach professional development and training compared to their older siblings, parents, and grandparents.
Boosterthon recognized its workforce’s appetite for a tech-driven learning solution that not only produced better experiences, but also represented a practical delivery system to eliminate geographic challenges and bring its widespread workforce closer together.
SOLUTION
Bristow says the company’s existing learning solution was bulky and stale, learners didn’t engage with its overly formal delivery mechanisms and content, and (most challenging of all), was unable to support the collaborative, socially-oriented training the company desired.
“Our old system was incredibly formal. We wanted to flip that and find a way to make our learning programs fun – we saw it as a way to bump engagement and make our training more effective. We believe we’re on the cutting edge of America’s new workforce – we wanted a learning solution that evolves with the changing needs of our workforce.”
To bring those aspirations to life, Boosterthon turned to Docebo, launching its core LMS, Docebo Learn, and Docebo Coach & Share for social learning in the summer of 2018 to train its 500+ employees. Bristow says the company was initially attracted to the platform’s intuitive user-interface, simple configuration features, and gamification capabilities – and is particularly fond of the Coach & Share module (plus Docebo’s Single-Sign On feature).
“Having multiple channels that replicate the format of content platforms like YouTube identifies with our younger workforce and pushes them to interact with the platform, contribute their knowledge and start conversations,” says Bristow.
Boosterthon is currently using Docebo for internal training, delivering content via Coach & Share by centralizing various formal and informal learning assets in a way that brings team leads (Power Users) into the mix.
Team leads customize training assignments and ensure only the best and most relevant content meets the needs of their respective teams. “By including middle and team managers in the process of reviewing and critiquing our learning content, we’re saving time and resources. These people don’t have to travel to various events to make sure our front-line employees are getting the training they need, all the while making our training processes more effective and efficient,” adds Bristow.
Additionally, the channels functionality gives employees a place to upload relevant content in an environment that connects with the right audiences. “The channels feature is huge for us. We have so many market-specific needs that each of our teams needs their own channel to communicate.”
Plus, gamification also opened the company’s eyes to new ways it could challenge team members to learn, grow and interact with the platform. “Gen Z and Millennials love hearing their names called out in our company updates; the teams love it, too. Competition in learning and fun is important to our new workforce,” says Bristow.
RESULTS
On top of performance and engagement improvements, Bristow says one of the most powerful benefits of the Docebo Learning Platform has been its ability to democratize learning at Boosterthon by turning L&D into a business culture activity, compared to a forced-from-the-top-down task employees have to do.
Boosterthon has been consistently attracting 250 active users each month to its learning platform. Success is measured by user engagement, feedback from field teams and by identifying who’s logging into the platform and making contributions, which is a key value indicator to the company’s goal of converting organizational mindset to one that embraces continual improvement. “Ultimately, we want to weave continuous learning into the fabric of our organization,” says Bristow.
“If we can instill the kindness and above-and- beyond customer service mentality with our people through our learning platform, that’s a game changer for us.”
As for what’s next, Bristow expects to better leverage the platform’s learning plans feature, as well as use more interactive webinars to deliver video-based training.
“We run lean and mean – we want our people to own their learning. So we do everything we can to empower them with practical and relevant content that helps them grow in the best way possible – the best is yet to come!”
