Milo Paves Way for Performance Initiatives
Background
Prior to its 2013 global reorganization many of Pearson’s operating companies maintained independent HR processes and procedures. The siloed nature of the organization resulted in inefficient management and oversight of learning and performance initiatives for employees. Pearson initiated a search for an integrated technology solution that would serve as a centralized learning management system (LMS) providing a uniform learner experience while at the same time allowing lines of business enough flexibility to support their unique needs.
Client
Pearson is the world’s leading learning company, with 40,000 employees in more than 80 countries working to help people of all ages make measurable progress in their lives through learning. Pearson provides learning materials, places of learning, technologies, assessments and services to teachers, professionals and students in order to help people everywhere aim higher and fulfil their true potential.
Challenge
Pearson wanted to provide a seamless learner and manager experience to deliver global learning, performance, and compliance solutions for all employees. In addition, they wanted to allow each line of business and their administrators to develop and maintain their own unique learning content but on a common, standardized platform.
To achieve this outcome Pearson needed to consolidate several disparate LMS systems and migrate their respective learning catalogs and histories into a common platform.
Solution
Pearson selected Saba for their learning platform, and wanted to work with a partner that would not only implement the selected software solution but also challenge the way in which they ran their learning and performance practices. Through their search for consultants that were product experts, industry experts and would act as a collaborative partner, Pearson selected The Educe Group.
Educe assisted with design and execution of a solution enabling Pearson to group learning content by business, while pushing out certain company mandated courses in order to maintain universal compliance. In addition, Educe helped with the implementation of a centralized support model that effectively provides support for all of the different businesses within Pearson.
Educe has been a trusted partner from the very beginning of this initiative. They have consistently provided the right technical, project management, and product experts to help us succeed. We could not have achieved what we have without Educe.”
Jim Lewis, Director of Employee Development and Community Platforms
Pearson
Results
The adoption of the LMS, branded “Milo”, started in 2013 with locations in North America. Milo is now accessible throughout Pearson’s significant international population. Both the learner interface and email notifications display in each learner’s local language: Chinese simplified, Chinese traditional, Japanese, Korean, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, or Indonesian.
Pearson’s rebranding adoption initiative has been aided by a custom theme to provide the Milo look and feel, a custom welcome video, and a learner-friendly ‘Featured Content’ portlet for any new company-mandated courses. Learners can register and launch Live Classroom Training, Live Virtual Classroom, and Anytime E-Learning from Milo.
Upon the successful deployment and acceptance of the Saba LMS, Pearson and Educe leveraged the same platform to roll out the 2013 Performance Review Cycle to a select pilot population.
What’s Next
2014 is all about “One Pearson”. The aim of the company is to remove any technology barriers and treat all the businesses “as one.” For learning, the strategy is to further dissolve business silos and allow Pearson employees access to any courses, anywhere. Performance will incorporate not only goals, but also introduce the ability to coach employees. All performance related activities will be managed using the One Pearson
Employee Plan. The Pearson and Educe partnership continues to be one of exploration, innovation and collaboration.
The Educe folks are extremely professional and cordial, making it easy to collaborate. They have a great understanding of how the back end databases work and very helpful insights into why the Saba product is designed the way it is. They always have a complete and satisfying explanation. Because of the support we get from Educe we can make better decisions about how to implement and support the product.”
Quincy Fuller, Systems Integration Analyst
Pearson
