Mazars LLP Testimonial

Mazars LLP and Jenison: Working together to create a dynamic learning environment

Thiscase study shows how Mazars LLP andJenison, over the course of the last 7 years, have partnered to:

• Create an online elearning portal for staff at Mazars using the Jenison Learning Management System CheckPoint,
• Provide staff with access to a library of generic e-learning resources,
• Provide Mazars with access toJenison’s rapid authoring tool Perform, to enable them to create self-authored resources &
• Provide a portal to deliver resources from other companies and also resources they have built in alternative rapid authoring tools including Captivate.

Challenge

Mazars LLP, an international, integrated and independent organisation, specialising in audit, accountancy, tax, legal and advisory services, have long since provided training to a large audience of staff.

Traditionally delivered via classroom based training sessions, Mazars decided to investigate an alternative approach to complement more traditional learning methods. With a potential target audience of up to 13,000 staff, it just wasn’t realistic to offer classroom training for all of an individual’s training requirements and elearning was seen as the way forward.

E-learning offered several potential benefits over Mazars traditional training:

• The ability to reach a wide audience instantaneously and at any time of the day,
• Access to high quality, interactive off the shelf resources with a wide range of topics, from Microsoft Office through to team building, management and professional development,
• Cost savings over classroom based training,
• Measurable results on take-up and performance &
• The potential to self-author resources themselves, as opposed to commissioning the resources at a much higher cost from a bespoke elearning company.

The Solution

1. Generic resources

Mazars has a broad and diverse range of learning and development needs that they believed could be met through the delivery of generic resources: from understanding how to utilise and benefit from Microsoft Office applications (Word and Excel), through to on-going requirements for developing a broad range of people and management skills.

Jenison’s 4 portfolios of generic management resources met these needs, from providing staff with easy to use, audio rich courses for team building and coaching skills, video rich short courses on Managing a New Team,  through to Improving Individual Performance.

Mazars also anticipated demand for Microsoft Office 2010 training to be high, with a planned upgrade to the latest suite of Office applications. They planned to meet this need by providing staff with access to theJenisonsuite of ‘learn by doing’ end user Microsoft office courses, before deployment of the live applications.

Where learning needs could not be met with titles from theJenisonrange, for example Diversity, Mazars were able to buy in resources from other companies to deploy over CheckPoint and when a new IT system was introduced into the business they were able to build a resource in another well-known rapid authoring tool that was then deployed over CheckPoint.

2.  Perform

Mazars operates in an environment where meeting the needs of regulators and compliance is key to ensuring staff stay abreast of all current legislation.

With the introduction of the Bribery Act in July 2011, they were duty bound to provide staff with a comprehensive online resource to detail how the Act impacted on them, and how they needed to work to ensure they did not breach it.

In the past Mazars would have contracted a bespoke elearning company to create the resource, but because they knew they had the subject matter experts in house to provide the material for the resource, they opted to build it themselves

They took the subject matter and then used Perform to create an interactive, questioning and feedback rich resource that met their needs. What’s more, because it was developed in Perform it meant that over time it could be updated by Mazars to reflect any changes they need to make in relation to the Act.

3. CheckPoint

For staff development Mazars need to be able to track and evaluate staff usage of generic learning resources whilst also needing, for compliances reasons, to know what mandatory courses are being completed in predefined time lines (Bribery, Diversity etc).

The solution was to deploy the resources over CheckPoint,Jenison’s Learning Management System. This enabled Mazars to provide staff access via the web to the generic contents from Jenison, courses they authored themselves using Perform and where Jenison were unable to supply a generic course, for example Diversity, courses from other generic elearning companies.

Key features:

• Customised look and feel to enhance association and familiarity by staff,
• User group content management: CheckPointcan be used to meet a broad cross section of learning needs, from assigning staff specific titles to meet their exact needs, right through to assigning all staff in the business, a selection of titles to meet a business wide need &
• Tracking and reporting: Mazars used this function to track and monitor usage by staff, completion rates on resources and providing certificates for staff upon completion of courses and passing of tests.

The Results

Mazars view

We have been extremely happy with our elearning partnership withJenison. TheJenisonteam are great to work with and always respond quickly to our needs.  In our line of work, elearning will never totally replace classroom based training, but the elearning programme has allowed us to improve and enhance our training offering in an accessible and cost efficient way. The Checkpoint platform and reporting functions are equally user friendly, allowing us to manage and control from one site all of our elearning, whether generic from Jenison, bespoke using Perform or from other external sources.

The elearning programme is available to all staff as an extensive learning resource, as well as allowing us to  use it to set modules as pre and post course work for more traditional training. We are also using the programme when looking at objective setting and performance issues as part of our staff appraisal process.

Perform, which is straightforward to master, has allowed us to build our own high standard elearning material. Of particular use has been the ability to build banks of questions to use to test a user’s understanding of the subject matter.

Jenison view

Conrad Hamer fromJenisonexplains why he feels the relationship with Mazars has not only stood the test of time but also developed over the years:

“Having worked in this industry for well over a decade I am all too aware that to retain clients like Mazars you need to ensure their requirements are met cost effectively and on time. This must also be complemented by adding new resources to ensure that any L&D needs that develop in the future are met.

Because we are independent and the account management and technical teams are close knit we work really hard to incorporate a ‘can do’ approach to meeting on-going needs. We also remain dynamic through offering new resources to meet any needs the client may have moving forward (currently we are scoping out a programme to significantly enhance the features andcapability of CheckPoint, our Learning Management System).

Working with Mazars is very much a partnership and we will continue working hard to ensure we meet both their existing needs along with future ones for many years to come.