Success Story

Starting Small

Because they’re a small business, PGC lacked the resources to train employees outside of basic compliance training. After they recognized that effective training is a major competitive differentiator, they partnered with BizLibrary in 2014 to provide professional development opportunities to their staff.

Their goal with training was to enhance the overall culture within the organization and provide a more consistent training experience.

PGC launched their new training solution with a focus on department-specific needs and made it a priority to meet individual employees’ expectations for their own development. Because PGC’s program manager was starting a brand-new program, she relied heavily on her new partnership with BizLibrary, trusting the team to provide her with best practices and guidance for creating an effective program from the ground up.

Moving Ahead

In 2016, a new program manager, Katie Haley, took over the program and continued to build upon the foundation created by her predecessor. Katie quickly identified the need to provide better onboarding for new hires, and getting them up to full capacity sooner had an immediate impact on the overall productivity of the organization.

By using BizLibrary’s learning platform to develop better onboarding, new learners at PGC are able to complete company-specific training, IT security, and safety compliance within the first 90-days of employment.

This change in the employee experience not only keeps the organization compliant, but also provides a consistent message and experience for all employees during their first few months with the company.

BizLibrary’s technology has helped make this process seamless. As a manufacturing company, PGC has many employees who are not working at computers throughout the day. To overcome this challenge, PGC allows employees to utilize BizLibrary’s platform on their mobile devices, keeping the information in front of employees and easily accessible to them at all times.

Increasing Engagement through Employee Participation

To keep employees involved and invested in development beyond the required onboarding and compliance training, PGC uses a variety of recognition and engagement tactics. They have created a training committee with the purpose of driving more users to the online library, while supporting the company initiative to create lifelong learners.

Additionally, PGC started conducting employee spotlight interviews. In these interviews, employees discuss their role in the organization, how they can support other employees in their roles, and highlight their favorite learning resources. These interviews are placed in the learning platform for employees to learn about other departments and additional training videos that may benefit them as well.

These interviews have helped connect employees to one another and create a more positive company culture overall.

Seeing a Positive Impact

Since partnering with BizLibrary, PGC has seen an increase in employee engagement and overall training participation.

Each week, program manager Katie Haley checks system usage and participation – keeping in mind her goal of having 10% or more of PGC employees using BizLibrary each week. PGC is surpassing this number as, on average, 15% of their employees are logging in each week, with 70% of the organization using at least one resource each month.

On top of high usage, PGC has also seen the benefits of training with individual employees. They have been able to find resources to help with need-based learning and on-the-job training in various situations. For instance, PGC discovered an opportunity to educate employees when a department needed some help with inappropriate work conversations. They were able to educate all employees on what is appropriate for work with a video that softened the message and allowed everyone to grow.

PGC’s partnership with BizLibrary has helped Katie manage her own HR responsibilities.

“To have a tool like Bizlibrary to help build development plans and conduct compliance trainings has really taken the burden off me. I no longer must come up with ideas or trainings from scratch to share with employees. Bizlibrary has such a variety of courses that it really can cover a lot of content. I have also taken many of the courses to continue to better educate myself in my role.”

– Katie Haley, Program Manager

Perhaps more importantly, PGC has found that their initial assumption was correct: training is a competitive differentiator for them.

As a small organization, the access to resources and capital that benefit larger companies do not always exist at PGC. Yet, Katie notes that giving BizLibrary training opportunities to employees – free of charge – has been an excellent selling feature to not only attract top talent, but also create excitement about the opportunity to work for PGC.