Serefin

Challenge

Scaling learning and development globally

Founded in 2010 as the first healthcare management organization in Canada, Serefin has evolved into a global service provider with three distinct divisions: Serefin Health, Serefin Experiences and Voyzant Loyalty. Guided by a mission to humanize journeys through care coordination and technology-enabled solutions, Serefin empowers individuals and organizations when it comes to navigating and using complex systems effectively across the health care, travel and customer care sectors.  

As its workforce grew globally, spanning over 400 employees across four continents in multiple time zones and cultural contexts, Serefin expanded its training initiatives. Recognizing an opportunity to enhance how learning content was designed, developed and shared, the organization prioritized centralizing resources to enrich visibility, track learning progress, and support knowledge sharing across divisions.  

Scaling L&D globally became a pivotal step in growing our impact and reach. We looked at how to expand L&D opportunities to a global workforce, how to engage learners in ways that met their needs and preferences, and how to create an inclusive learning environment where all employees feel supported, empowered and positioned for success. 

Carrie Maynard, digital learning design manager

Serefin required a learning management system that could deliver a fully accessible learning experience and provide personalized, flexible learning opportunities to support individual growth and collective organizational excellence. 

Solution

Designing a new approach to training

At the heart of Serefin’s L&D transformation was the adoption of Brightspace as its single strategic platform for employee training, whether it’s onboarding, compliance training or recertification. Working closely with the D2L Implementation team, Serefin tailored home page layouts, navigation and communication tools to create a consistent, user-friendly experience for employees across all regions. 

“Brightspace’s ability to deliver an inclusive, adaptable and scalable learning experience offered the flexibility to meet divisional-specific needs while ensuring a consistent and accessible learning experience across the organization,” says Maynard. “From an administrator perspective, Brightspace’s features make content creation efficient and impactful. Having predefined templates reduces duplication of effort and helps maintain a user-friendly experience that our learners value.” 

To drive strategic outcomes across distinct divisions and multiple departments, Serefin initiated collaborative planning sessions that brought together stakeholders to map out departmental needs, training priorities and learner journeys. The result was a global mapping embedded within Brightspace’s organizational unit structure, tailoring learning paths while supporting supervisors with timely progress reports. 

With three lines of business within one organization, manual tracking was still common. So bringing in a feature such as D2L’s Manager Dashboard allows the team that needs those reports to have access to learners’ progress immediately, right at their fingertips, ensuring transparency and accountability at every level.

Carrie Maynard, digital learning design manager

Furthermore, Serefin embraced a social constructivist learning approach, which emphasizes active learning and scaffolding knowledge through social interaction.  

“Working remotely can often feel isolating, but the discussion boards have provided a space where I can share my thoughts and learn from my colleagues. It’s been a fantastic way to gain different perspectives and helped me feel more connected to the team,” shares Naveen Hussain, care coordinator, family support.  

Championing accessibility at every step

Serefin knows how important it is to make training accessible to everyone. The organization doesn’t just check the boxes for Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance, they go the extra mile to accommodate different learning styles and needs. 

To ensure all learning materials created across the organization were fully accessible, Serefin created ADDIE-based templates that embedded AODA compliance, WCAG standards and UDL principles. These templates, along with a Brightspace Checklist, established a consistent and standardized framework for the development of future training, ensuring that all content adheres to accessibility standards. 

To further support its L&D strategy, Serefin looked to make the most of the accessibility tools within Brightspace, as well as seamlessly integrating third-party tools such as text-to-speech technology TextAid from ReadSpeaker.

“As an integrated element within Brightspace, TextAid gives our employees full control over their learning experience, allowing them to adjust key features such as the reading voice, reading speed, text size and highlighting of text,” explains Maynard. “It also includes a dictionary feature and supports translations in over 29 languages, helping us ensure that employees across the globe can fully engage with the learning materials.” 

Utilizing the integrated accessibility checker in the Brightspace HTML editor, the Serefin team can continuously check that new training content is accessible. 

“I love Brightspace’s accessibility features [that] let us know if we are missing something, whether it’s colour contrast or having alt text for images,” recalls Maynard. “Flagging this during our content creation process helps ensure all learning materials meet WCAG standards.”  

Launching Brightspace

As a key component of the global L&D strategy, Serefin sought to support and educate its workforce on neurodiversity by introducing a training series titled “Supporting Neurodiversity and Autism.” The first installment of the series also acted as an introduction to Brightspace for the workforce. The training aims to foster awareness, cultivate empathy and provide practical strategies for contributing to an inclusive organizational culture.  

“Research suggests that one in four people within the workforce are neurodivergent,” says Maynard. “That insight reinforced the importance of not just meeting accessibility standards like AODA and WCAG, but exceeding them. By designing learning experiences that embrace a wide range of learning styles and needs, we’re making education more engaging and effective for everyone.” 

Result

Discovering operational efficiencies

With the Brightspace platform supporting its global L&D strategy, Serefin has enabled a seamless, adaptive learning experience globally.  

The transition to Brightspace has made my training experience far more manageable and hassle free. Instead of navigating through multiple platforms and trying to locate different training modules, everything I need is in one place. I like that I can have a view of all my training on the dashboard and keep track of my progress in one glance.

Naveen Hussain, care coordinator, family support

The L&D team has also enjoyed a boost in productivity with the new structured approach to producing training materials. In just nine months, Serefin has introduced 13 new educational offerings on the Brightspace platform, averaging nearly 1.5 new offerings per month, demonstrating an impressive and sustained pace of growth.    

To date, Serefin successfully deployed 22 trainings, tailored to training and recertification needs across three divisions, significantly enhancing employees’ skill sets and supporting their professional growth. 

Driving learner success through accessibility

Serefin saw the immediate benefits of integrating ReadSpeaker into Brightspace. Of 421 employees enrolled in the first installment of the “Supporting Neurodiversity and Autism” series in April 2024, 35% used TextAid during May. 

To put ReadSpeaker’s immediate impact in perspective, TextAid was utilized 348 times during the first 15 days after the launch alone. The use continued over a month after the launch, reflecting sustained interest in this accessibility feature.

Naveen Hussain, care coordinator, family support

Employees shared how accessibility tools directly improved their learning experience: 

“As an auditory learner, I’ve always struggled with reading-heavy training materials. The addition of the TextAid feature, which reads the content aloud, has made it much easier for me to learn. Now, I can listen to the material while following along, and I feel much more engaged with the content,” comments Hussain. 

Others valued the flexibility to learn while managing busy schedules: 

Melissa Holmes, care coordinator, family support, shares: “During a busy period when I was juggling multiple priorities, I used the text-to-speech functionality to listen to course materials while commuting. This helped me stay on track and retain critical information.” 

In addition to enhancing access and engagement, the accessibility features led to a more seamless user experience. 

The adoption of this accessibility feature and Brightspace’s user-friendly design have significantly reduced common usability issues, with employees encountering fewer technical problems while engaging with the platform. Since the launch of Brightspace, the number of IT support tickets has been remarkably low, sitting at 2%.

Carrie Maynard, digital learning design manager

Furthermore, post-training learner surveys report that levels of satisfaction across several categories remained consistently at 90% or higher: 

• 96% reported a clear understanding of expectations and activities 
• 94% were satisfied with the adequacy of content 
• 94% found the platform easy to navigate 
• 95% were satisfied with the pace of training content 
• 94% reported increased confidence after training 

As Serefin gathers more feedback and learner data, it will evolve its training offerings, driving a culture where neurodiversity is celebrated and embedded in everyday practices.

“The global L&D strategy at Serefin has set the stage for future growth, innovation and a culture of life-long learning, reinforcing Serefin’s commitment to supporting its employees at every step of their professional journey,” adds Maynard. “We have plans to introduce a competency framework to further tailor learning paths for employees, ensuring that every individual has access to the learning they need to succeed.”