The Colorado Health Care and Economic Security Staff Development Center (SDC) is the training connection between the Colorado Department of Human Services, the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, and the Governor’s Office of Information Technology.
The SDC is responsible for identifying essential training needs and establishing and maintaining competency-based curricula for state employees in 64 Colorado counties. Yet the SDC’s homegrown learning management system (LMS) made it difficult to manage, track, and report on learning and development. According to Michael Martinez, LMS admin/web content editor for the SDC, “The catalog offered training from all over the state, which made it hard for our users to find the training they needed for jobs and for compliance. Out of our 5,000 users, only about 500 were in compliance.”
The homegrown system also made it impossible to track ROI. “Rosters were filled out manually and put into file cabinets,” said Martinez. “It was very difficult for the state to have a grasp on how many people we were training, what it was costing, and where we should be investing to drive compliance and learning.”
Why Cornerstone
The State of Colorado conducted an extensive RFP process in the search for an LMS that would bring all training into a single system. “With Cornerstone
Learning, we got this great product that would enable us to centralize our data, consolidate training practices, and start tracking and analyzing ROI,” said Michael Martinez, LMS admin/web content editor for The Colorado Health Care and Economic Security Staff Development Center (SDC). “We knew Cornerstone was also flexible enough to allow for customization. The State of Colorado has specific branding guidelines, so the ability to customize our Cornerstone portal with our state logos and state certified colors meant we could stick with our current branding. We didn’t have to redesign the wheel.”
Martinez and his team found Cornerstone “insanely easy” to roll out. “Our employees were used to a system that was very difficult to use. In contrast,
Cornerstone is well designed and has a friendly user interface. It was such a novel idea to employees that using it could be that easy. Plus, Cornerstone’s
support system is phenomenal. Any time I need help, I get it right away.”
The Results
Increased training completions by 700 percent. Prior to Cornerstone, on average, only 500 employees were in compliance with necessary training. “Results have been pretty significant. We now have more than 4,000 employees in compliance, up from 500,” said Martinez. “Our compliance numbers are through the roof. For state government, that’s huge.”
Increased compliance with federal regulations by 350 percent. Consolidating training within Cornerstone Learning has made it easier to comply with federal regulations. “We’re realizing the benefits of having a consolidated system. With Cornerstone, we have access to all the metrics, so we can see who has taken training and who hasn’t,” said Martinez. “We’re in compliance with the federal government now on a lot of our training initiatives. Before Cornerstone we were at 20 percent. We’re now close to 90 percent.”
Enabled ROI analysis. Prior to Cornerstone, calculating ROI wasn’t even a possibility. “It would have required immense amounts of manual labor,” said Martinez. “With Cornerstone, our governing body can see how effective the system has been and how effective the investment in our team has been
regarding all our different training initiatives.”
Improved decision making with real-time data. Martinez recommends Cornerstone to other state and federal organizations that must have access to more robust, real-time data. “For me personally, the biggest thing is having the numbers that I need, when I need them. We’re not making decisions based on assumptions but on data, and that leads to more effective government overall.”
Saved manager time. SDC managers love Cornerstone’s mobile capabilities, which save time and enable offsite access to training and approvals. “Mobile learning has been huge with our supervisors. Managers are always too busy to do anything new. But with Cornerstone, they can take training on the go and most importantly, approve training on the fly through the app.”
