One of Canada’s largest oil firms engaged Learning Designs Online to help discover the source of a significant performance problem in its network of retail service stations. Management was seeking solutions to sustained patterns of bookkeeping errors and the resulting high call volumes to the retailer’s corporate support center.

Learning Designs initiated a needs analysis which combined on site interviews with service station owners and staff with an analysis of the intranet-based knowledge management/elearning system.

Our performance specialists soon discovered the key problem. They found that the firm’s induction training program failed to help new hires to transfer the knowledge they learned in training to the real job situation. As well, retail staff who encounter problems or ‘forget’ how to carry out certain tasks or procedures are unable to easily find the information they need from the knowledge management system.

Learning Designs recommended a blended solution that included: workshops targeted at key skills gaps, improvements to the information design of the knowledge management system, and creation online and paper-based job aids for critical tasks.