Quality guest experiences worldwide.
BWH Hotels delivers award-winning training to 4,000 member hotels with Adobe Learning Manager.
95,000
Course enrollments by 16,000 employees
Products:
Objectives
Increase training to strengthen employee skills and improve guest experiences
Provide an easy-to-use learning platform that employees like
Provide 4,000 independently operated hotels worldwide with a wider selection of courses
Use in-depth reporting to understand what training hotel staff need and want
Results
15% increase in course enrollments, with 95,000 enrollments from 16,000 people
75% fewer help desk tickets due to greater ease of use
80,000+ new courses added through partnerships with Go1, Interplay, Lobster Ink, and others
Assess training success with accurate insights into course participation and learning paths
Diverse training for all member hotels
Scott Stephens is passionate about giving people the skills they need to succeed. He started working towards his master’s degree in educational technology while employed as an IT analyst at BWH Hotels, the leading hospitality company behind the Best Western brands of hotels and resorts. His career and passion converged when he joined the company’s learning and development team. Now, as Manager Learning and Development, Stephens supports training for thousands of employees worldwide at more than 4,000 BWH Hotels locations.
For Stephens, one of the biggest training challenges isn’t just the size of the company, but its complexity. Most locations are independently owned and operated member hotels that work together under the 19 BWH Hotels brands. Individual hoteliers oversee staffing, human resources, and training programs.
Stephens and his team want all employees to get the training they need, but they have no visibility into who employees are and little control over what courses hoteliers assign beyond a handful of required modules. All they can do is provide a wide variety of top-quality training and a smooth learning experience that encourages employees to complete lessons.
While BWH Hotels had a learning management system (LMS), its difficult navigation failed to engage the company’s 36,000 learners, while inconsistent reporting made it difficult for Stephens and his team to determine the best way to improve courses. Stephens decided to search for a new LMS that would be better suited for the company’s complex organization. One hotelier recommended looking at Adobe Learning Manager.
“Adobe Learning Manager gets rave reviews from users, and it has deep functionality that allows us to connect with new partners and add thousands of courses to deliver training that our hoteliers want,” says Stephens.
“The excellent user experience is one of the reasons why we’re seeing a 14.6% increase in usage year-over-year.”
Scott Stephens, Manager Learning and Development, BWH Hotels
Growing enrollment and nurturing skills
Employee feedback for the new LMS has been stellar. Navigation is far easier, allowing people to find the courses they need without additional training to use the system. Employees can find courses in multiple ways: clicking on assigned lessons, browsing through course catalogs, viewing recommendations, and searching for specific topics. Stephens hopes that the increased accessibility and visibility will encourage people to develop their skills to provide better guest experiences and advance their careers with BWH Hotels.
Since employees don’t always receive an official email immediately after joining their hotel, integration with Amazon QuickSight allows learners to log into the LMS and receive notifications using their personal email. Stephens also likes how he can adjust the look of the LMS, adding logos and branding from BWH Hotels to help employees feel more connected.
According to a user poll, about 82% of respondents agreed that it’s easy to log in and enroll in courses, but Stephens refers to a different number when looking at the impact of navigation — 75% fewer help desk tickets from learners.
“When it takes too many clicks to find courses, many learners give up,” Stephens explains. “Good navigation has a big impact on continued learning. The excellent user experience is one of the reasons why we’re seeing a 14.6% increase in usage year-over-year.”
Thousands of opportunities for development
Since switching the LMS, Stephens and his team have expanded partnerships with other companies serving the hospitality industry and added thousands of new courses. Partnerships with Interplay, Lobster Ink, and Ecolab add hundreds of valuable lessons for hoteliers. These courses teach everything from understanding essential hygiene practices, to completing simple maintenance tasks such as fixing a toilet, to setting up a formal banquet. The biggest partnership comes from Go1, which provides employees with access to more than 80,000 professional development courses.
Stephens works closely with partners to establish learning paths that guide hoteliers towards best practices and essential skills. Reliable, in-depth reporting helps Stephens determine how many people take each course. This gives him insight into whether courses, partnerships, and learning paths meet hoteliers’ needs.
Engagement continues to increase, indicating that Best Western is on the right path. In the past year, Stephens measured 95,000 course enrollments by 16,000 people and 64,000 course completions by 13,000 people.
“The more we encourage training, the better it is for our brand and our customers. Adobe gives me the tools to expand learning to help all employees become more successful.”
Scott Stephens, Manager Learning and Development, BWH Hotels
Setting the bar with award-winning training
BWH Hotels’ learning and training program received nine Brandon Hall Awards — including two Gold Awards — for excellence in learning, as well as a Training APEX Award from Training Magazine. But for Stephens, the true measure of success is the excitement and participation from hoteliers and their teams.
“We see a correlation between hotels where a lot of people complete training and higher customer satisfaction scores,” says Stephens. “The more we encourage training, the better it is for our brand and our customers. Adobe gives me the tools to expand learning to help all employees become more successful.”
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