Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 - (Page 71)

EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE • GOLD • PROVIDER AWARD Meridian KSI With a growing number of employees, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) needed to reduce the cost of training. About 1,000 Border Patrol agents were hired in 2007, and 2,800 agents were brought in for 2008. Jeffrey Fuller, director of training production and standards for CBP, said he expects 3,000 agents to come on-board in 2009. Additionally, CBP was faced with the need to facilitate the rapid presentation of training to keep up with government initiatives that had led to more agents graduating each year from the CBP Field Operations Academy. To address its training and development challenges, CBP decided on a blended learning model. Then the agency purchased learning management technology for creating, delivering and evaluating training. This technology became the foundation of what the agency dubbed the Virtual Learning Center (VLC). “We looked at every vendor that could’ve provided us with learning technology to deliver, track and analyze training,” Fuller said. “And Meridian was the best option.” Previously, the Virtual Learning Center (VLC) road map seemed like a cafeteria-style learning tool, in which people simply cherry-picked courses. The Meridian support team worked with CBP to develop a mission-speciﬁc program designed to guide Border Patrol agents’ training needs. The Meridian team also developed custom functionality, such as real-time scoring and report cards that tracked how well government personnel performed in scenario-based courses, such as those that mimic sensitive law enforcement issues. Meridian also proposed a fail-safe for the VLC that allowed students and staff to stop training curriculums without compromising the CBP’s training guidelines or timelines. This feature helps prevent records from receiving incomplete marks in the event of an emergency that disrupts training, such as Hurricane Dolly in July. Using the fail-safe, students and staff suspended training for a week, and picked up their coursework the following week with minimal impact. Meridian’s blended-learning curriculum runs 24x7 and ensures newly minted Border Patrol Academy graduates take courses in sequential order, following mandated timelines. The Meridian team also offers broad technical support, including assisting with the analysis of CBP’s IT architecture for VLC training programs. “We appreciate the dedication and support offered to Customs and Border Protection by the Meridian team of Wes Bowen and Ashley Lanier,” Fuller said. The VLC has helped CBP personnel complete 700,000 online courses. Employee satisfaction with VLC courses earned a cumulative average score of 4.5 on a ﬁve-point scale. EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE • SILVER • PROVIDER AWARD Expertus A global networking organization working with Expertus estimated that 20 percent of its global workforce participates in training classes in any given year. To administer training, this organization’s Information Technology Learning Group (ITLG) had six training coordinators each operating in a different location. These training coordinators handled planning, forecasting and scheduling of the learning systems locally and independently. As a result, ITLG was plagued with a number of challenges, including frequent cancellations, inconsistent data entry, high costs, signiﬁcant amounts of administration training and slow response times. The model was fragmented and inconsistent. To help remedy the situation, the company teamed with Expertus, a provider of strategic training outsourcing services. The organization had previously worked with Expertus to provide back-ofﬁce logistics and training administration for its theaters from the tech hub of India. The organization turned to Expertus to take over the training administration and scheduling for all of the theaters, utilizing a centralized group of 20 Expertus learning specialists. As a result, several hundred personnel were reallocated, and ITLG shifted its six on-site resources to focus on other functions. Expertus also conducted an independent analysis of class-cancellation patterns to provide the data necessary to shift or cancel some classes. All theater classes were combined into one global catalog, and Expertus designed tools to track and manage all scheduling activities, bookings and cancellations. Expertus also provided live support to instructors and learners for the large number of virtual classes. The outsourced approach has produced the following results: • Cost-savings of almost $250,000 a year. • Overall streamlined operations, which has led to a reduction in errors and a centralized base for all training processes and administration. • Drop in class cancellation rates: from 30 percent to less than 15 percent. • Doubling of enrollment in classes, coupled with a decline in total number of hours spent in training. • Overall improved satisfaction scores from class attendees. 71

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008 Editor’s Letter Contents Connections Business Impact Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial The Future of Learning CLO Profile Learning Opportunities Embedded in Social Networking ManTech Leverages Knowledge Management Approaches for Social Networking Agility Training for the Learning Organization Creating an Agile Organization With Learning 2.0 2008 Learning In Practice Awards Corporate Social Responsibility: How Can Learning Contribute? Union Fenosa Corporate University: How CSR Education Impacted the Bottom Line Training in the 21st Century: Everything Old Is New Again Zions Bancorp.: Connecting the Dots Case Study Business Intelligence Advertisers’ Index Editorial Resources In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - December 2008

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