It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that REV Group keeps the country running. The innovative company manufactures “vehicles for life” — including firetrucks, ambulances, commercial yard trucks, and even luxury recreational vehicles. Across four divisions, 22 manufacturing sites, and 7,000 employees, REV Group has a diverse and distributed workforce Building a workforce for the future is an essential component in the company’s mission — a mission supported by OpenSesame.
Sparking employee development
To drive user engagement with the learning and development platform, REV Group makes OpenSesame courses available to every employee. “Naturally, we have some required compliance courses,” explains Elaina, “But beyond that, we encourage staff to select courses on their own, partner with their manager to choose development courses, or follow one of the curated leadership tracks available to them.”
REV Group also promotes its learning and development platform on the company’s intranet, where new or especially relevant courses are spotlighted. “I love that we can rotate courses in and out of our OpenSesame library to keep the content fresh and allow us to highlight hot-button or trending topics.”
Elaina says soft-skills courses, including topics surrounding collaboration, effective communication, and leadership are proving especially popular, as are technology-focused courses that help employees upskill and reskill.
“Everyone had positive things to say about OpenSesame, both the product and the support behind the product.”
Elaina Lund, Corporate Training Manager, REV Group
Built into the culture
REV Group considers employee development an essential part of its culture, beginning with employee onboarding and continuing throughout an employee’s career with the company. “Our goal is to empower our people to learn new skills that help them grow in their careers. We want to build REV Group’s future leaders.”
As the learning and development culture takes hold throughout the company, Elaina says that departmental managers often come to her with special initiatives, asking for course material to support the subject. “I’ll reach out to our OpenSesame client success manager and they suggest several options. It saves me and my team time, and we know we’re getting quality recommendations.”
Frontline workers primarily attend classroom training, but even here, OpenSesame curriculum finds a foothold. “We’ve curated a list of courses that supplement our classroom training and encourage employees who want to learn more about the topic to enroll,” Elaina says. “It’s been an ideal way to keep the discussions going and begin to affect positive change right on the front line.”
Driving retention
Employee retention and recruitment are top-of-mind at REV Group, and its learning and development program is an integral part of the initiative. Skills training is one of the top perks employees look for in a job, and it’s also been shown to be a motivating factor in increasing retention rates.
“We’ve seen that learning and development can significantly impact both employee retention and attraction of new hires,” says Elaina. “When employees are confident in what they’re doing and they can see a clear path for their career, they’re more likely to stay with the company.”
“We’ve seen that learning and development can significantly impact both employee retention and attraction of new hires.”
Elaina Lund, Corporate Training Manager, REV Group
Open the doors to learning
“OpenSesame is more than a content provider,” Elaina says. “They actively work with me to curate our playlist of courses, doing the research based on what they know about the company. Their support is exceptional — and personalized. Everyone I interact with is helpful, friendly, kind, and personable. I always get a quick response to my questions, and they follow through to ensure I got what I needed.”
Elaina adds that OpenSesame’s value comes full circle. “They offer learning and development tools directed at people in my role — monthly webinars for example, that cover topics of interest to L&D professionals. OpenSesame is helping train the training professionals, which helps me stay out in front and be better at what I do.”