PROJECTS
Bridge Underwriting Learning - First American
First American is a title insurance company that facilitates and streamlines real estate transactions by providing comprehensive title insurance protection and professional settlement services.
They help homebuyers and sellers, real estate agents and brokers, mortgage lenders, commercial property professionals, homebuilders and developers, title agencies and legal professionals close transactions.
We are in the ongoing process of designing a 10-unit Bridge program for the company. This program utilizes live PowerPoint presentations, Mini-Modules with Knowledge Checks, and Skills Session/Labs to effectively "bridge" newly hired underwriters from their previous occupations into the specialized world of title insurance underwriting.
We are utilizing several different methods of learning in this process to provide learners with a variety of ways to master the material. Our designs and consultations with the learning team at First American throughout the program are providing them with much needed support for this giant undertaking to improve their company's services and employee retention. The project is ongoing until 2022.
eLearning for The Related Companies
The Related Companies is an international real estate development and management company with dozens of projects in process at any given time. When Related implemented eBuilder, an enterprise-wide construction management application, they needed a way to provide fast, effective learning to thousands of employees, vendors, contractors, sub-contractors, and consultants.
Related turned to Polestar Solutions to help them determine the best approach to getting such a large and diverse group of learners up to speed on the numerous workflows and tasks needed to manage the various projects. Working closely with stakeholders and subject matter experts, we determined that to effectively reach this audience, eLearning modules would be the principal training delivery platform, with ongoing support provided via an online Help system, FAQs and quick reference materials.
We designed and developed elearning for the six key workflows, provided FAQ and quick reference materials via SharePoint, and built the online Help system. To date, several hundred learners have taken advantage of the training, and we anticipate reaching one thousand this year. And more importantly, they have successfully begun using eBuilder.
Custom ILT Projects for Ross Stores
Polestar Solutions has been providing custom ILT, project management, development and support for Ross Stores, Inc. for nearly 20 years. Our long-term relationship has been so successful because we understand that training needs to be flexible and responsive as a business grows and changes.
We provide ongoing customized systems training through on-site and online sessions, in particular on Excel and PowerPoint. As we do with all of our clients, the training is specific to the files, data and workflows that are in use at Ross, and is therefore relevant and meaningful to the employees.
When Ross has made major technology upgrades, we have provided training solutions that kept management and employees well ahead of the industry curve. Over the years we have worked with Ross, and later dd’s Discounts, to provide training when they adopted a new PO system; rolled out a global trade management software; implemented a new retail management system and data warehouse, and deployed two report-writing systems.
Over the years, Ross management has come to know that they can count on Polestar to help keep them up to date with the technologies they use on a daily basis, and to guide them through the changes that result whenever a new system is implemented.
SEC Compliance Training for Related Fund Management
When RFM, a fund management company, approached us about their need for SEC compliance training, we understood the challenges we would face. Having created compliance training many times before, we knew that the key was to make a dry, albeit important subject, both interesting and easily accessible to the learners.
Our approach was to design training that incorporated interactive exercises, games, and challenging knowledge checks. Because learner completion needed to be carefully tracked and appropriate reporting made available to management, and because learners needed a flexible way in which to attend the training, we designed and built elearning modules that ran through the company’s learning management system.
The program was successful, and even though we have provided source code to RFM (as we always do!), they continue to ask us to update the content every year.
Security Training for Hudson Yards
Hudson Yards is a multi-billion dollar construction project on the West Side of New York City, involving dozens of partners, thousands of workers, and a lot of information sharing. The Director of Security needed to be sure that anyone working on the Hudson Yards project who required access to confidential or privileged information, understood how to keep that information secure. Because the project scope quickly expanded as the Hudson Yards project got underway, it became apparent that an eLearning approach would be the most efficient means of delivering the training. Content was kept interactive, and an emphasis was placed on correctly identifying, using, transferring, tracking, and storing both Confidential information, and Confidential and Privileged information.
Interestingly, our primary dilemma with this project was learner access to the security training. The audience for this training was huge and comprised not only internal employees, but external contractors, sub-contractors and vendors. No one could access privileged information until the security training had been successfully completed, but the client’s firewall restrictions meant external personnel could not log into the client’s LMS. A solution had to be found that would allow Hudson Yards to properly deliver, track and document security training for all project personnel. To that end, we helped the client find a SaaS learning management system that could house this particular content, track the users securely, but still remain outside the firewall. Through this solution, the Hudson Yards security training was successfully delivered, documented and reported.
Internal and external management have commented on the challenging nature of this training. We are proud to have been able to help our client to not only deliver essential training, but also conquer an extremely important security concern.