Customer since: October 2015 Size: 400+ employees, 5 offices Industry: Construction Headquarters: Atlanta, GA

Schoox gave us the easy training delivery platform to build training courses and the knowledge base storage center we wanted.

Company description

Choate Construction Company provides general contracting and construction management services, delivering maximum return on investment for clients in multiple market sectors across the U.S. Founded in 1989, Choate Construction was a basement start-up, begun during a recession when construction projects were sparse and the employee roster small.  Today, Choate employs over 400 full-time professionals.  But like the “basement days” Choate maintains a flat management style, with complete accessibility and communication between executive management and employees in the field.

Choate Construction

The Business Challenge:

  • We had a full time trainer and training room. We trained new employees by using a Go-to-Meeting invite. We did not have a central place to house all of our training materials.
  • As we were introducing new technologies and software. We needed a knowledge base or center for employees to easily access materials.
  • We also had the challenge of having 50% of our employees offsite. We needed to be careful of downtime from project sites.

The Solution: Why did Choate choose Schoox?

  • At first we looked at wiki based websites and systems. Then we discovered Learning Management Systems (LMS) and then started choosing the right one for us.
  • We had casually picked an LMS solution. At this point we had not come across Schoox. So we started putting some of our training materials on this LMS and immediately realized there were some issues. The tech support was inferior and we were running into issues with the lack of functionality. .
  • We then began to turn toward larger LMSs and looked at SharePoint type options. We quickly realized we had very specific needs and functionality. We created a spreadsheet of all the functionality we needed and began demoing over a dozen different systems.
  • Schoox was the only LMS that had both the course side and the Library reference side. We also loved the way Schoox indexes everything making it easy to search for anything you need. It was so easy to create courses, sign up for a course and take it.
  • Schoox is exceptionally powerful with a simple wrapper. I can teach someone how to create a course in five minutes or less.
  • Schoox’s App like design is now our baseline for judging other software. Schoox has become the state of the art technology that we compare all other technologies.

The Results: How did Schoox Solve Your Business Challenges?

  • Schoox gave us the easy training delivery platform to build training courses and the knowledge base storage center we wanted.
  • Schoox’s mobility aspect was a significant business advantage for us given we have hundreds of job sites throughout the Southeast. It allows all of our off-site employees to access training on their mobile device.
  • Schoox allowed us to design access and views based on our unique organizational structure.
  • It also allowed us to document best management practices that were sitting as unsearchable PDFs on our intranet. Now, in Schoox, the forms are searchable. Our employees can search on key words and find the appropriate document they need.
  • On the reporting side with Schoox, we can see how employees are progressing, assign badges and award certifications.
  • We even used it as part of our 360 reviews for employees. In the reviews, employees provide feedback on skills or training courses they would like to learn about. Now, we simply point them to the course in Schoox or we identify the suggestion as a potential future course in Schoox.

The Surprise: Were there any benefits of Schoox that were unexpected?

  • Schoox made it incredibly easy for our company to receive a significant tax break for companies who are have dedicated training for employees. We were able to easily document everything for accountants.
  • Schoox also unexpectedly helped us extend our One Life Safety program to our subcontractors. We realized how easy it is in Schoox to offer all of our safety courses and safety training to our extended family. It helps us and it helps our subcontractors.
  • We have also created courses that we otherwise would not have created simply because it is so easy on Schoox. We created a quick course on email etiquette in 15 minutes.
  • With Schoox’s private and public academies, we are also looking at utilizing Schoox for our partnership with Citadel Construction Group. We could share best practices with all the partners in the group in a private academy. Possibilities are endless.
As told by: Todd Barrett, Director of Virtual Construction