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D2L Unveils ‘Skills Connection’ to Build the Workforce of the Future

New initiative connects educators with employers to address the skills gap and align talent with business objectives

Press Release

D2L, the global leader in learning technology, today announced a new initiative called Skills Connection. As part of the initiative, D2L will offer a comprehensive set of tools and services for businesses and schools — powered by its Brightspace learning platform — to help organizations close the skills gap, increase retention and better attract new talent. In addition, Skills Connection will provide a foundation for higher education institutions to partner closely with employers, thereby increasing student enrollment at these institutions. “We live in an era of disruptive change -- where one of the biggest challenges we are seeing is the need for continuous learning to help address critical skills gaps in almost every industry,” said Jeremy Auger, Chief Strategy Officer of D2L. “Skills Connection brings together the worlds of business and academia to build the right skills across the workforce today – and meet demands for skills tomorrow.” Benefit of D2L Skills Connection for Business Skills Connection allows businesses to upskill or ‘re-skill’ workers to better align their people with their business objectives, reduce turnover, recruit new talent, build succession plans and develop the right skills for the future. It will also allow businesses to more easily build and curate curriculum content, capture and leverage knowledge throughout the organization and provide social learning experiences across their organization. More specifically, D2L’s Skills Connection will support businesses by:
  • Allowing employers to leverage best of breed teaching from higher education institutions
  • Providing a better understanding of the breadth and depth of their employees’ skills and competencies
  • Enabling companies to easily identify skills gaps across the organization
  • Recommending specific learning programs and training to help individual employees
  • Empowering employers to monitor the efficacy of their Learning and Development programs
Benefit of D2L Skills Connection for Higher Education The flexibility of D2L’s Brightspace Learning Platform allows educational institutions to deliver personalized learning experiences at scale for employers through close partnerships with Corporate L&D teams. Skills Connection will build upon D2L’s long history of providing cutting-edge learning solutions for higher education. D2L’s Brightspace platform allows educators to develop innovative academic programs that better support employers’ unique training and development needs across their workforce. Tools within the platform will also provide educators with the option of sharing progress of each employee back to the employer as they progress through the curriculum and master various skills. Early adopters of D2L’s Skills Connection The University of Memphis is one example of an institution that is an early adopter of D2L’s Skills Connection initiative, by using D2L’s Brightspace as the foundation for a learning and development program together with global delivery company, FedEx. The program -- called Learning Inspired by FedEx, or LiFE – enrolled more than 3,000 frontline employees or one-third of the eligible FedEx workforce. “Before we partnered with University of Memphis, FedEx was experiencing high turnover across many of our frontline employees, which was impacting our company’s growth,” said Robbin Page, Vice President of Human Resources, FedEx Express. “Once we established a program for developing our employees skills, we noticed retention rates improved. Our employees can now see a career progression path at the company.” “It’s been an incredible experience providing this learning program for FedEx employees,” said Dr. Richard Irwin, Executive Dean, University of Memphis Global and Academic Innovation. “The D2L platform was instrumental in delivering our course content for building the right skills to meet both the new and evolving demands across their organization. The leadership team had unique insights into how these skills were being developed and the FedEx employees felt a new sense of optimism at the company.” To learn more about the University of Memphis and FedEx partnership, access the case study here. D2L will continue to offer new technologies and strategic consulting services for both businesses and education institutions in the coming months as part of Skills Connection. For more information about D2L for higher education and businesses and its award-winning Brightspace platform, please visit: www.D2L.com

ABOUT BRIGHTSPACE

Brightspace is a cloud-based learning platform that makes online and blended learning easy, flexible, and smart. Brightspace is a quantum leap beyond traditional Learning Management System (LMS) – it is easy to drag-and-drop content to create engaging courses, supports all mobile devices, has industry-leading up-time, and is built with accessibility in mind for all learners. Plus, Brightspace enables the future of learning with a gaming engine, adaptive learning, video management, intelligent agents, templated interactives for course design, full support for outcomes or competency-based learning, and actionable learning analytics. D2L’s Brightspace was recently named the #1 LMS in Higher Ed by Ovum Research and #1 in Adaptive Learning by eLearning Magazine. In addition, Aragon Research included D2L in its highly coveted Hot Vendors In Learning list. To learn more, visit the Enterprise page on our website.

ABOUT D2L

D2L believes learning is the foundation upon which all progress and achievement rests. Working closely with organizations globally, D2L has transformed the way millions of people learn online and in the classroom. Learn more about D2L for schools, higher education and businesses at www.D2L.com.

D2L Media Contact

Colin Horgan
‪Executive Communications Director
[email protected]
Twitter: @D2L

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