Customizing Training to Fit Users

When the City of Pittsburgh needed a cloud consulting company to migrate their work force from the Google Suite to Office 365, they turned to Planet Technologies. Utilizing Planet’s Evolve 365 platform and team of Learning Strategists, the City of Pittsburgh has also entered the world of workforce transformation and operational change management for nearly all of its 19 departments. They have now taken an active role in future proofing their workforce through custom adoption plans, training videos and webinars offered by Planet’s Evolve 365 program. These are all important tactics and strategies for the continued success of the City’s IT capabilities and their work force. Planet is proud of this relationship with the City of Pittsburgh that started over five years ago.

Before working with Planet, the City of Pittsburgh was struggling to ensure that all employees were learning and working at the same level and pace and with similar understanding of their systems. The City “could not afford to ignore their training challenges any longer,” and it was important to supervisors and managers that there be a strong workplace culture of continual learning and growth. Planet’s Evolve 365 learning platform is and continues to be the perfect solution. Planet’s robust and ever-available learning platform gives the City of Pittsburgh’s staff a place where they can find detailed webinars, newsletters, tutorials, and one-on-one support for all skill levels to improve overall understanding and performance. With top-notch training available 24/7, the City’s supervisors and managers no longer need to juggle training costs, schedules and approvals. Analytics collected by The City of Pittsburgh show that in only one year, Evolve 365’s training material has helped them complete their work 5 times faster. Employees are now empowered and prepared to guide their own success.

“For the past several years the City of Pittsburgh has had a great working relationship with Planet Technologies. Employees from multiple departments say they find monthly training campaigns, showcasing specific applications in Office 365, are just what they need to improve their skills. Other staff report that the short, on-demand training videos are helpful in learning the tricks and techniques that enable them to take advantage of many more features in Office 365. Some managers declare that they have found Evolve’s on-demand training videos are just what is needed for their staff to get into the habit of continual learning.”

– Joan Anderson
Senior Training Coordinator
Department of Innovation and Performance, City of Pittsburgh

Project Goals

• Migrate fully from Google to Microsoft 365
• Drive user adoption of Microsoft 365 tools and features
• Continue releasing new technology, including Microsoft Office and Windows 10
• Provide role-specific job training to highlight daily technology use across 19 departments within the City of Pittsburgh. Examples include training on Office tools for clerks & admins, document management in Word for lawyers, identifying differences and driving change for managers, and training on best available tools for contractors at the City of Pittsburgh.
• Transition to a completely remote workforce in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the immediate rollout of Microsoft Teams, work-from-home learning paths & training, and help desk support for end-user questions.

Project Wins & Highlights

• Over 60% engagement with end users on Learning & Adoption Activities.
• Steady increase in technology use over time and technology use driven by trained users.
• Role based training provided practical day to day application of technology to business process.
• Following an Adoption Framework allowed Pittsburgh to quickly respond and adapt to the changing work environments of COVID-19.
• Provided live phone support to users with consistent average of 150 minutes per month.

What the Data Shows Us

When you curate content based on specific user roles you are able to drive adoption of new technology at a rapid pace. Users are able to relate new technology to everyday tasks and are able to gain new efficiencies to better serve their customers. Working with their dedicated Evolve 365 Learning Strategist, the City of Pittsburgh continues to drive awareness of new technologies and continues to highlight different roles and uses of new technology to improve everyday tasks. Using one consistent learning platform, provides users with a consistent experience to return to time after time to gain experience and skills. No matter if they have just a few minutes to dedicate to learning or if they want to take a full course, Evolve 365 provides them that opportunity.