D2L

Challenge

Developing technical expertise for new hire

D2L is a global learning innovation company that helps organizations reshape the future of education and work. Working with clients in K–12, higher education, associations and the corporate sector, D2L is on a mission to transform the way the world learns through its Brightspace learning management system (LMS) software and its support services.

In just 25 years, D2L has grown to include more than 1,000 employees worldwide. Among its most specialized teams is solutions engineering. The team works closely with prospects and clients, delivering highly technical demonstrations to drive sales and ensure successful adoption—making effective onboarding essential to their success.

“Our solutions engineers are known as being well-rounded product experts,” says Brielle Harrison, senior product enablement manager at D2L. “They’re able to provide high-level explanations of the product and its features or dive into deep technical conversations, depending on their audience. This can only be achieved through specialized training and support.”

Because of the complexity of the role, the solutions engineering team’s original onboarding program had expanded to over 500 topics. “There was a lack of guidance on how to approach this vast body of training materials. You might spend time puzzling over a resource that’s way beyond your competency level and then go to the next topic and realize that you should have started there,” recalls Harrison. “Without standard assessments to determine skill level, it was just a gut check—does this person feel ready to go off into the world and be independent?”

To streamline the onboarding process and provide better support for new solutions engineers in developing their expertise, the team decided to re-envision its approach to employee training. “We know the best ways to support people in professional training and in adult education: competency-based learning, aligned with other instructional design best practices,” says Harrison. “It’s what we advise our prospects and clients to do all the time, and the success is evident. So, we knew how we had to approach transforming our own onboarding course.”

Solution

Focusing on competencies

The solutions engineering team started a rigorous transformation process and set itself a goal of reducing the onboarding timeline that typically took anywhere between six months to a year down to just three months.

“We worked with leadership to delineate six different competency areas, such as presentation skills, instructional design acumen and project management,” explains Harrison. “The competencies have a range of level one through five, from basic introduction level to advanced director level. And level one is where we wanted our solution engineers to be after the three-month onboarding period.”

Using instructional design theories such as backwards design, the solutions engineering team was able to align their approach with industry standards for adult learning. The team used the six competency areas to determine 37 learning outcomes and developed a more streamlined learning experience in Brightspace, with only relevant content topics and using progressive disclosure when introducing new modules.

As a result, the team was able to reduce the total volume of course content by 80%, which helps new team members focus on acquiring the skills they need rather than just trying to absorb as much information as possible.

While building competencies, the team also hoped to encourage confidence and independence in new talent by cultivating connections to the broader learning and development ecosystem at D2L.

“A lot of the process is teaching new hires how to find the right information and feel supported in their professional development,” says Harrison. “Instead of reinventing the wheel, we focused on the learning moment, linking to relevant resources that existed already in other formats in our public community and in our internal documentation. It helps them learn to navigate, so when they need a specific piece of information, they know where to look.”

Refining the process

After developing this streamlined approach, the solutions engineering team launched the first iteration of its new onboarding course. To ensure solution engineers in all branches of the business—K–12, higher education and corporate—received relevant training, the team used release conditions to customize the learning experience, enabling a personalized approach.

“The feedback was very, very positive overall, showing that we were going in the right direction,” comments Harrison.

With feedback provided by the solution engineers, the team began working on a second iteration of the course. For example, because the course led to 37 different learning outcomes, new hires felt that they had to take a large number of different assessments to ensure that all the outcomes were met.

“We looked at how to test for more learning outcomes at once,” says Harrison. “But we also added the option of submitting real-world work for every assessment. This gave the solution engineers the ability to submit demos they’d already done for prospects, or RFP questions that they’d worked on, to prove their competency.”

Mentoring the mentors

Mentorship is a key part of the onboarding process for solution engineers. To help its mentors ensure that they could provide new hires with the best support possible, the team added a mentorship module to the course.

“We ask a lot of our mentors,” says Harrison. “They not only grade assessments—they also shadow new hires during demos, give feedback on RFPs and teach them the sales process. We wanted to create a detailed matrix that parcels out all the information they need in a digestible format. It covers everything from how to give actionable and timely feedback to more general aspects of life at D2L.”

Result

Enabling engaging content

Leveraging Brightspace’s Intelligent Agents tool, the solutions engineering team created automatic personalized notifications for learners and mentors to mark their progress in the course and remind them to continue if they fall behind.

“It would have been a lot to manage manually for one person, so the intelligent agents made my life a lot easier,” comments Harrison. “They also made the process easier for the mentors. Having an automated reminder to mark assignments helps them keep on top of everything.”

The team also drives learner and mentor engagement by adding an element of fun to the intelligent agent notifications.

“I’ll always embed a GIF or a meme in the notification,” says Harrison. “I even create custom memes sometimes. And I’ve had people tell me that they really enjoy them—that they’ll complete a full module knowing that at the end they get to see the meme

At the same time, the team finds it easy to increase engagement within the courses by using the all-new Creator+ package. “The built-in inline editing in Creator+ was especially good for making the course look great without my needing to be especially skilled as a graphic designer,” notes Harrison. “And I am absolutely enamored with the new Creator+ H5P plug-in for creating interactive content.”

Creating confidence and reducing time to value

With the onboarding course up and running, the solutions engineering team is seeing a significant reduction in time to value for new hires. Whereas in the past new solution engineers would only start completing tasks with mentor assistance three months into their time at D2L, now they dive in as early as week three.

“One of our solution engineers, after just one week on the job, created a demo video that we felt confident sending to a prospect, which had never happened before,” says Harrison. “Of course, we hire amazing people, but with the new onboarding course people are a lot more confident sooner.”

On average, onboarding time was reduced by four and a half months. With solution engineers working independently much sooner, D2L saved around $990,000 in monthly salaries for employees still in training.

In addition, the engaging new course is contributing to a reduction in employee attrition.

“Since launching the course in November 2021, no one has left their role because the onboarding process was too demanding or they feel like they couldn’t do the job. This was feedback we would hear often during exit Interviews in the past,” comments Harrison

With the new onboarding experience now expanded to all six of D2L’s global regions, other departments are eager to transform their own onboarding programs. Brightspace’s flexible design allows for seamless replication and customization of these processes, facilitating tailored onboarding programs that meet diverse departmental needs. Harrison is applying key learnings from developing the onboarding course to improve D2L’s broader staff enablement and upskilling programs. “My goal now is to replicate what we have done in a more scalable and global manner so that we can give that amazing experience to all D2Lers,” concludes Harrison.