The United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada

Challenge

Helping Canada’s workers build a better life 

Grounded in the rich 200-year history of trade unions across Canada, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Canada (UFCW Canada) helps working people come together to improve their lives. UFCW Canada supports workers in fighting for better wages, safer workplaces and social justice for all. UFCW Canada consists of 23 local unions and serves over 270,000 members in key sectors of the economy such as food production, manufacturing, healthcare and more. 

To help workers unlock their potential, UFCW Canada runs its webCampus program—an online learning platform providing over 300 personal and professional development courses free of charge to UFCW Canada members and their families. The organization uses D2L Brightspace as its learning management system (LMS). After using the Classic Content Experience on Brightspace for years, the webCampus team decided to make the switch to the New Content Experience, which offers a simplified visual presentation of content for educators and learners. 

“Useful, relevant content is the most important thing, but the layout and feel of the course adds value and makes members more likely to keep taking the courses,” comments Marv Funk, education director at UFCW Canada. “We felt it was time to step forward and refresh our courses to continue providing the best possible experience for our members.” 

Solution

Transforming educational experiences 

To enable the migration to the New Content Experience, the four-person webCampus team turned to its D2L Technical Account Manager (TAM) for support. Together, UFCW Canada and D2L transformed 300 courses across 11 categories. 

“We are skilled enough to do a lot of troubleshooting ourselves,” comments Funk. “But sometimes that’s not enough, and our TAM has the comprehensive experience to resolve more nuanced issues. It’s very worthwhile to have someone who truly understands you, and who you can trust to find the answer.” 

To UFCW Canada, the D2L TAM provided valuable insight throughout the transition, helping resolve any issues that came up as the organization migrated different types of courses. 

“Our TAM has been a blessing to us,” confirms Nelli Gasparyan, digital education specialist at UFCW Canada. “She helped us every step of the way. From understanding the value of this transition to its implementation. When we had difficulty activating New Content Experience in some courses, she helped us manually go through them and complete the switch.” 

Working closely with members

To ensure user acceptance, UFCW Canada took a phased approach, and gathered regular feedback from members. The team also created tutorial videos to help members become familiar with the New Content Experience before completing the switch. 

“We worked with our webCampus advisory group to conduct side-by-side testing and collect feedback,” explains Funk. “This was important to ensure we went about the transition correctly. We have built up strong technical knowledge of the LMS over the years, so we don’t know what it’s like for a first-time user. Getting that feedback reassured us that moving to the New Content Experience was the right choice.” 

Result

Empowering busy workers with engaging education

Today, UFCW Canada has more than 15,000 registered learners across its webCampus courses, with continued growth each month of 15-20% new users. Learners can choose to complete short courses, such as the 15-minute On-The-Go modules, or study toward university-accredited micro-credentials and certifications. The webCampus program is also empowering members to fight for their rights more effectively, with courses educating workers on how to navigate labor disputes or respond to challenging management situations. 

The minimalist user interface enabled by the New Content Experience improves accessibility and helps learners focus on the content, not navigation. At the same time, the streamlined layout is accelerating course development, helping the webCampus team meet evolving membership needs faster. 

“We design courses for busy adult learners,” says Gasparyan. “The New Content Experience is so clean and easy to navigate, it encourages our members and their families to complete more courses and pursue new opportunities.” 

Looking to the future

UFCW Canada continues to scale and improve webCampus. For example, the team is now developing new micro-credentials based on the On-The-Go courses. Growing partnerships with leading Canadian universities will also offer members new opportunities to upskill. 

“Workers deserve respect and all the support they can get,” concludes Funk. “I’m proud that we can offer them education completely free of charge, when the costs involved with traditional educational paths keep rising. We do this because we believe in people, wherever they choose to go.”