City of Cleveland Modernizes Their Workforce with Online L&D Programs

The Start of Someone New  

When there is someone new stepping into a leadership role there can be changes that occur naturally. Often the new leader brings a fresh perspective to the table, which can create a shift in priorities and a different way of doing things. These transitions happen in every organization which helps with notoriety, talent acquisition and retention, and its ultimate longevity.  

One of our clients, City of Cleveland, recently underwent a leadership change when a new mayor was elected in January 2022. Mayor Justin Bibb was the first millennial elected to office, and with that came a vision of modernizing city hall to ensure the city earned back a place in national conversations. Achieving this goal meant ensuring that the City of Cleveland employees had the opportunity to expand and improve upon their skills to keep up with the demands of the modern-day workplace.  

The Digital Revolution at City of Cleveland 

Bibb decided that the best way to upskill and reskill the employees would be to partner with an online training solutions provider. Because they are a municipality, the organizational development department kicked off a formal RFP process with two main criteria:  

1. The learning management system (LMS) has an easy-to-use interface with an extensive off-the-shelf content library  
2. The platform and content could be accessed by all employees at any time 

The City of Cleveland has over 1,200 job titles, and some of the positions require employees to work outside of a typical 9-5 schedule. This challenge was the reason for the guiding criteria because everyone is on different schedules and spread out over various types of work locations, which can make getting completions for even the most standard learning and development programs difficult.  

After evaluating multiple solutions, they ultimately landed on BizLibrary because the team felt that the partnership would check the box on everything they were looking for, noted Dustin Hargis, Training and Development Specialist. He recalls what really stuck out was the number of titles and content topics BizLibrary offers so that no matter your role, you could find something to learn. Additionally, employees could access BizLibrary on the go with its mobile capabilities, which was a huge plus for field employees.  

Land and Expand  

Before getting into the strategic side of implementation, Hargis and his BizLibrary Client Experience Manager (CEM) took the necessary time to get the technical side squared away. With thousands of employees, over one thousand job titles, and several different email domains (or lack thereof), it was important that not a single learner was missed. The implementation playbooks provided by BizLibrary made it easy for Hargis to follow along in the set-up process, so he knew exactly what was happening, what he needed to do to keep the ball rolling, and what the next steps would be.  

Once the technical side was completed, Hargis and his CEM began strategizing around how the rollout of BizLibrary to the City of Cleveland learners would go. With the size of the learner base, in order to make this a successful launch, Hargis knew they would have to roll the solution out in phases. They started with the mayor’s office and moved on to other employee segments from there.   

Each rollout included the same setup to create a consistent experience for all employees. Because of the executive support from the beginning, Hargis got the mayor to film an introductory video to get learners excited about the new benefit – an idea we think is genius!  

Additionally, he built out a new learner playlist. All employees for the City of Cleveland work with the mission of serving its visitors and residents, so it made sense to Hargis to have the first playlist centered around customer service. This was featured in launch communications with details on the incentive program they were running that included the chance to win gift cards.  

After the rollout to all the employees, they began monitoring the platform’s utilization by tracking logins and course launches. Hargis mentions that employees used to resort to Google or YouTube when they didn’t understand a concept or wanted to improve a certain skill, but he hoped they would become comfortable leveraging the content within BizLMS going forward. After evaluating post-launch metrics, they showed that learners were receptive to going into BizLMS as their one-stop-shop for all of their learning and development needs.  

What’s to Come  

Since launch, Hargis has been busy partnering with his Client Success Manager (CSM) to build out programs that will continue to modernize the workforce at the City of Cleveland. As they began brainstorming on the vision for these programs,

Hargis recounts that working with his CSM has been “phenomenal and prompt when there are questions. Additionally, he is extremely receptive to figuring out new ways to use BizLibrary and open to recommendations when I have them.” 

Programs that Hargis plans to implement soon into the City of Cleveland culture include:  

1. New employee compliance training: with so many complex schedules, moving this program from an in-person to a virtual setting was vital to achieving 100% completion. This training program will encompass sexual harassment, DEI, violence in the workplace, customer service, and cybersecurity.  
2. Year One Project: a program designed to follow a new employee’s first year at the City of Cleveland to enhance the onboarding experience to retain young talent in the organization. This program gives new hires the opportunity to complete various training programs through BizLibrary and with their manager, as well as navigating performance evaluations.  
3. Management training: historically, the City of Cleveland never had a management training program. This new focus area will allow city managers to receive training on how to become the best people leaders. Eventually, Hargis plans to evolve the program into tracks for new, middle, and senior managers.  

We know that these programs are going to be wildly successful, and we can’t wait to hear the amazing feedback from them!