The EOSYS Group, a leading provider of industrial technology services to the manufacturing sector, has transformed the learning and development experience for its employees by adding OpenSesame’s high quality off-the-shelf training offerings.
EOSYS, an employee-owned leading provider of industrial technology services, is transforming its employee training program. Led by Donna Copeland, Training and Development Manager, the company adopted OpenSesame as its comprehensive training library to meet the varied learning needs of its 200+ employee-owners, with a focus on expanding course offerings and boosting learner engagement.
In the technology services industry, training requirements for highly skilled employees are always changing. Companies like EOSYS must ensure their staff is not only up to date on safety and compliance but also adept in technical and soft skills. Monotonous and outdated content can disengage learners, and lengthy courses make it hard to digest specific information. To address this, organizations adopt e-learning platforms like OpenSesame to keep valued team members current with industry tools, knowledge, certifications, and people skills.
Going beyond required training
Before Copeland’s arrival, EOSYS relied on a single, safety-focused vendor for their safety and compliance training. However, the repetitive content and lack of variety in this system led to a search for a more versatile and engaging alternative: “Our staff was tired of the same old training courses every year,” Copeland recalls. “It was a fairly limiting system, we needed to find a better option.” And so she set out to find one. Enter OpenSesame.
After thorough research, Copeland chose our solution to revamp her company’s training offerings. Her team values the new safety courses and is enthusiastic about the new technical training.
“I was really impressed with the type and diversity of training that was available. We are a company of builders by nature, and we create a lot of our technical training in-house,” she explains. “But for some of those off-the-shelf things like software or Microsoft Office training, I love that OpenSesame has courses that enable people to go in and click specifically to what they need to get to. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, and I can use my time better.”
“I was really impressed with the type and diversity of training that was available. We are a company of builders by nature… I love that OpenSesame has courses that enable people to go in and click specifically to what they need to get to.”
Donna Copeland, Training and Development Manager
In addition to the requisite compliance courses, Copeland is excited to offer EOSYS teams more options for skill building in areas like human resources, leadership development, and essential business technology. Pairing this variety of options with an intuitive and flexible platform that empowers learners is a big improvement—“it just felt like it hit a sweet spot,” she adds.
Increasing engagement and belonging, too
To introduce her workforce to OpenSesame, Copeland launched a contest encouraging employees to explore the course catalog beyond the mandatory safety training.
“Part of the contest was having people take at least one OpenSesame course to get them to search the catalog, see what’s available, and it couldn’t be a required safety training course,” says Copeland. “It was a really good kickoff that worked for us, because we’re able to capture learning needs right in the platform. People can upvote courses, and I can see what they have requested,” she explains. Paired with the recommendations from our curation alignment process—a key part of onboarding with OpenSesame—these insights help Copeland feel she’s providing training that resonates with her colleagues.
“No two people like to learn exactly the same,” notes Copeland, “so having the opportunity to choose a wide variety of styles is a benefit for our people to help them stay engaged. It helps them feel like it matches their needs a little more.”
Another area where OpenSesame is helping Copeland is by offering culture building content. She’s focused on arming people with leadership skills with a strong emphasis on mutual respect and understanding: “I love that OpenSesame has excellent materials to help shape culture and grow soft skills. Whether that be content that encourages creating a sense of belonging, how to work in a hybrid environment, or teaching leadership skills to new managers; I can find the content we need on OpenSesame.” The result? By prioritizing training on themes like belonging, productivity, and feedback, EOSYS has been able to align training with key company values; helping to bridge the gap between different employee perspectives and enhancing overall organizational effectiveness.
“I love that OpenSesame has excellent materials to help shape culture and grow soft skills.”
Donna Copeland, Training and Development Manager
Empowering learners and partnering for the future
OpenSesame’s diverse content and smooth course delivery has helped transform the learning culture at EOSYS. Employees can take charge of their own skill development, pursuing the training opportunities that are most relevant to their current roles. With tailored learning paths they can better align their learning efforts with their career aspirations, too.
It’s not just learners who are appreciating the change; EOSYS leadership has been impressed too. The move from a purely compliance-focused training model to one encouraging more holistic development has been well received, especially since it’s proven more cost effective. “It brought the cost to a place that felt reasonable for our organization,” notes Copeland. “Leadership has been pleased with the return on investment.”
Of course, there’s always room to improve. Looking ahead, Copeland has leadership development and directly linking the impact of training to career progression as key initiatives. She’s excited about the increased variety of OpenSesame publishers and leadership content in particular. It is important to her to enable EOSYS employee-owners to learn in a style that meets their needs, whether it is audio-only, microlearning, or book summaries. The high-quality content provides her with an efficient way to build custom training programs around off-the-shelf courses with supplemental EOSYS-specific additions.
One of the keys to Copeland’s success, she’s quick to point out, is the strong partnership between EOSYS and OpenSesame. “I definitely feel a connection with people at OpenSesame. When I open a live chat or ask for a curated list, it’s always a human, and it feels more personal.” This close collaboration will remain key, she anticipates, as she works to address immediate training needs and long-term strategic L&D goals of the company. With a top-notch training library and course delivery solution at her fingertips, Copeland is well-poised to help EOSYS build the skilled, adaptable, and forward-thinking workforce it needs to help them stay ahead in the technology services industry.
“I definitely feel a connection with people at OpenSesame. When I open a live chat or ask for a curated list, it’s always a human, and it feels more personal.”
Donna Copeland, Training and Development Manager