Change isn’t a scary concept at Nikola Corporation, an American manufacturer of alternative energy commercial vehicles and energy solutions. Instead, it’s embraced, pursued as an essential component of creative problem solving—something that should be “nourished by a passion for discovery.”
This forward-thinking mentality permeates every aspect of their rapidly growing operation. “Nikola, when I started in 2021, had around 300 employees,” remembers Robin Deibis, Nikola’s Director of Employee Relations. “Now we’re 1,500 employees—so that gives you an idea of how quickly we grew.”
Robin wears many hats at Nikola, assessing the organization’s learning needs and effectively delivering training and development opportunities to employees across the world. She’s also in charge of employee experience, meaning she hears firsthand what Nikola’s workforce needs to feel successful and fulfilled in their careers. “We had a lot of feedback as we were growing, and the voice of our employees was heard loud and clear: They wanted to expand their skills with development and training opportunities.”
“We had a lot of feedback as we were growing, and the voice of our employees was heard loud and clear: They wanted to expand their skills with development and training opportunities.”
Robin Deibis, Nikola’s Director of Employee Relations
For a company that lists “constantly pursue progression and improvement” as one of its core values, that response is pretty on brand. And it’s an area where OpenSesame has stepped in to provide valuable guidance and support since 2021.
“Over 90% of our current content is through OpenSesame,” notes Robin, adding that “with our learning management system, we’re able to track not only course completion, but also capture employee satisfaction with the material through 5-point ratings. These insights help us see what is assigned and completed, as well as what titles might be more relevant for learners.”
Wide-ranging learning needs
As Robin sees it, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to training that would make sense for Nikola. Yes, there are the essential requirements: “I oversee our compliance programs, so, of course it’s important we have all the proper titles for compliance training. And we also have a lot of first-time managers, and they all need fundamental training and development.”
But Nikola’s learning and development opportunities need to account for tremendous diversity, too. “About half of our employees are dedicated to corporate services and about half to manufacturing,” Robin explains. “The needs of a PhD and the needs of somebody doing a lot of work on the manufacturing floor are quite different. And about 60% of our workforce is ethnically diverse, often preferring to take training in their native language instead of just English. Finally, it turns out about a quarter of our critical learners are only doing their training on a personal mobile device. So flexibility was really key for us when it came to an elearning content provider.”
20,000
training events logged in 12 months
10
course per employee on average last year
2
point increase in engagement scores after implementation
OpenSesame’s expansive library of courses fit the bill, offering materials in a variety of formats and languages, covering topics from safety and compliance to leadership and mentoring. “Having the right courses was really critical to us,” adds Robin. “Looking at the content, making sure it was relevant and appropriate for our learning population—we felt that OpenSesame had just a plethora of information and trainings that we could employ.”
Doing more with less
“Work quickly and get things done. Value simplicity and cut red tape.” These tenets make up another key value for Nikola, and delivering on employee demand for more training would be held to the same standards. “But we don’t have a learning and development team—I’m really it,” explains Robin. “So that meant focusing on who needs what and when; identifying and mapping exactly what the needs were for our different employees. Looking at the process of getting started, Makena, my Customer Success Manager (CSM) at OpenSesame, was wonderful in helping us get everything integrated.”
The added capacity of a customer success manager greatly improved the ability to get things done. “Having a CSM that would work with our subject matter experts and not only myself to select trainings, that’s key and critical,” recalls Robin. “It’s easier for the safety specialist to work directly with an OpenSesame partner, or quality specialist, or subject matter expert, so they can get the answers they need quickly from a reliable source. That flexibility was huge.”
“Having a CSM that would work with our subject matter experts and not only myself to select trainings, that’s key and critical.”
Robin Deibis, Nikola’s Director of Employee Relations
Implementing a new program is one thing, but scaling it is another. “Of course, refreshing training is a critical component of learning and development,” says Robin. “You have to make sure you’re going in and measuring what matters; seeing which courses have a high rate of completion and therefore might be due for a refresh, or looking at those courses that have a high rate of people vacating the training and making sure they’re relevant for the people to which they’re assigned.”
And it doesn’t stop at just looking at the courses in isolation, Robin is quick to point out. “That’s one other thing that I always look at: How do you create a curriculum and tie those trainings together so you have a cohesive program? Having our trainees give feedback here is really helpful, even if they’re just giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. And it’s great that every learner has a dashboard so they know exactly where they’re at. That one-stop-shop is really critical for engagement.”
That last point has been especially underscored by recent economic turbulence. “With the latest supply chain disruptions,” explains Robin, “our elearning platform and content has allowed us to repurpose idle time, investing it in training and development programs. We logged more than 20,000 training events for our employees in only 12 months—that’s more than 10 training courses per employee, on average. Through our analytics, we’ve seen this translate into a 2-point increase in our employee engagement and experience scores! And we all know that those have a direct correlation to retention and engagement.”
“Through our analytics, we’ve seen this translate into a 2-point increase in our employee engagement and experience scores! And we all know that those have a direct correlation to retention and engagement.”
Robin Deibis, Nikola’s Director of Employee Relations
Creating a culture of growth
It should come as no surprise that, through the dedicated work of Robin and her colleagues, formalized learning and development begins for Nikola employees on Day 1. “Orientation is a great way to get new learners involved, engaged, and to show them how to jump into training very quickly. On their first day, we introduce everyone to the learning opportunities that are available to them, and actually assign them titles to get started,” explains Robin. “Getting them into that culture of training is really critical, so that’s always where we start.
Next, they look at the bigger picture. “Retention matters a great deal to us, and we want people to feel like they have a future here,” says Robin, adding “the exit of one key employee will far outweigh the cost of any training for an organization.” By looking at data from exit interviews, and comparing that to departing employee’s participation in training, it’s clear that keeping employees engaged in learning and development positively influences their tenure at the company.
“So we are doing career mapping at Nikola, and actually showing how employees can grow within their roles.” Here, learning is just as essential. “I often remind people not to undervalue the power of a certification,” adds Robin. “I have PhDs that hang their learning certificates in their workspace—they’re proud, that is their internal currency of learning. It’s really important to them that they can show that they are lifelong learners even though they already have a PhD. So learning never ends; skill development never ends, and OpenSesame is really helping us deliver on that.”