Phased approach and strategic planning lead to successful rollout
Background
UNLV’s vision is to improve the lives of its diverse students and transform communities through education and engagement. To support this vision, the University’s strategic plan includes a key objective to “foster a culture of continuous improvement through development and growth of support infrastructure,” and a more specific goal to “develop training, tools, and resources to support continuous improvement activities, including professional development offerings” for faculty and staff. However, the University did not have an enterprise-wide Learning Management System (LMS).
Client
Founded in 1957, UNLV is a public university and nationally recognized research institution. The university employs over 10,000 faculty and staff and has a broad range of talent management needs and compliance requirements.
Challenge
The implementation of the LMS was designed to address several challenges facing UNLV in meeting its strategic objective. Most importantly, the University was missing an opportunity to holistically develop its most valuable resource: its people. UNLV did not have a central, standardized method to deliver, track, and report on employee training and professional development activities, from mandated compliance sessions (e.g., anti-sexual harassment and cybersecurity) to skills and professional growth courses (e.g., Management Training Academy). In addition, there was not a single source of truth where employees could keep a record of their training and professional development history. And finally, the lack of an LMS had resulted in a patchwork quilt of time-intensive monitoring and tracking processes and raised the risk of noncompliance for the university.
Solution
UNLV chose Cornerstone’s Saba Cloud platform as their LMS platform and engaged with Educe immediately to develop a plan for implementation. UNLV’s Director of Organizational Development in Human Resources had a vision for the LMS but had no experience with an implementation project of this scale and relied upon Educe to guide the strategy and planning for the project.
With a diverse group of stakeholders and varied requirements across departments, the decision was made to implement the LMS utilizing a phased approach. To ensure success, the number of departments in Phase 1 was limited, and scoping sessions were conducted with potential stakeholders to validate their readiness, willingness to engage, and criticality of the learning that needed to be delivered, tracked, and reported. Additionally, a determination was made to hire a centralized HRIS system administrator who would support a decentralized administration structure where department and unit leads had responsibility and autonomy for managing their own processes and learning. In addition, executive sponsors were involved throughout the project to consider governance, ensure buy-in, and address any obstacles encountered.
During Phase 2, UNLV rolled out the department onboarding training program for new department leads, department-specific requirements were determined, and configuration adjustments were made as appropriate. In the beginning, Educe led these efforts, but as the new HRIS system administrator shadowed and became increasingly familiar with the system, Educe trained him to assume all aspects of executing the onboarding program.
They listened to us – our challenges, what we would like to accomplish, and how we’re currently operating – and translated it into a plan that makes sense for our stakeholders. Their guidance not only allowed us to successfully launch our LMS, but through training and careful planning, we have continued to build on our initial success by onboarding new departments and leveraging new functionality. We could not ask for anything more from our partnership with Educe!”
Erin Collier, Director, Organizational Development in Human Resources
UNLV
Results
Today, UNLV operates a new scalable, modern, and integrated HR and Learning technology ecosystem that continues to support its University-wide strategic objectives. UNLV has been able to train eight learning department administrators to integrate training into the system and has been successful at increasing the number of training courses in their learning catalog. In addition, they have streamlined the efficiency and effectiveness of their Learning management operations and processes and have improved visibility into Learning and Organizational Development metrics through reporting. And last, but certainly not least, the University was able to embark on a major talent technology transformation initiative while maintaining collaborative and collegial relationships between all parties involved – from their internal OIT partners to their external resources.
Educe has been, and continues to be, a trusted partner as we roll out our first enterprise-wide LMS. They are experts in LMS software, but what really sets them apart is their knowledge of university business processes and culture.”
Erin Collier, Director, Organizational Development in Human Resources
UNLV
