Service-Oriented Bank Seeks Training That Ensures Compliance & Development

THE COMPANY

A Massachusetts, state-chartered bank, Martha’s Vineyard Bank has been in operation for over 110 years. Voted Best of the Vineyard continuously for over 18 years, Martha’s Vineyard Bank serves the Martha’s Vineyard and Falmouth area. They continually strive to provide businesses and individuals with financial solutions that make their clients’ financial lives easy.

Martha’s Vineyard Bank’s training goal is to develop skills and knowledge as individuals and as a team in the areas of relationship development, solution expertise and compliance. OnCourse Learning has assisted Martha’s Vineyard Bank by providing staff education opportunities that are meaningful to employees and have played an important role in helping the organization achieve its strategic goals.

STRATEGY & GOALS

“Each of our departments and business lines have unique training and development goals and needs. The training function of our bank collaborates with managers to identify and meet their needs. Faced with higher-than-average cost of living in the communities we serve, we value our training and development program as an essential tool for reducing turnover. By focusing on quality training and professional development, we are supporting a team of informed, engaged and curious individuals who find the work at Martha’s Vineyard Bank fulfilling. It makes it easier for employees to stay longer if they are challenged and if they know they have opportunities to move up in the organization as it grows,” explained Training and Development Manager, John Shorrock.

Martha’s Vineyard Bank wanted a trusted training provider that would work with them to create a program customized for their specific training needs. In addition, the bank needed a learning management system (LMS) that was robust and easy to use. Shorrock sought an all-in-one training solution.

After researching other training providers, Martha’s Vineyard Bank chose OnCourse Learning, a company aligned with their core values that offered best-in-class training that meets all industry regulatory requirements with an enhanced user experience, a broad array of topics and robust reporting.

THE RESULTS

Over the past six years, OnCourse Learning has enabled Martha’s Vineyard Bank to implement a robust training and development program while maintaining a “lean” training department. OnCourse Learning helped to streamline their reporting, provide more visibility and access to training completion and educate their employees in a way that is meaningful to them while being cost-effective.

Courseware:

Shorrock was quick to incorporate the different course formats (animation, video, webinars, etc.), which empowered employees to choose how they wanted to learn. It also provided the flexibility in training programs that small community banks need.

Shorrock is building out career pathing libraries within the OnCourse Direct learning management platform. This will provide employees the ability to select their own professional development courses and take responsibility for their career path in a way that is meaningful for them.

Using the Artisan course authoring tool within OnCourse Direct, Shorrock can edit courses. He quickly found the benefit of being able to add links directly to internal policies and procedures within a course. Shorrock shared, “I’ll go in and insert pages that link directly to our policies and procedures. When I do that, it’s proven to keep people focused. They now know what our policy is, and they don’t have to go look for it. It does have an impact as we have less findings after we complete a training. It helps.”

This personal touch drove greater understanding and overall increased knowledge across the bank. Shorrock was also able to refine the content to fit their smaller bank. OnCourse Learning was able to help Shorrock create a dynamic training program.

OnCourse Direct Learning Management System (LMS) :

OnCourse Direct allows administrators the ability to load their own courses or webinars into the LMS providing an all-in-one training and comprehensive reporting experience. “Reporting is advanced. This year I’m pre-programing reports that are scheduled to automatically run at the end of the month to hopefully catch training that isn’t complete,” Shorrock said. The reports give Shorrock a clear understanding if students are behind in their training or have not completed their required courses. The reporting within OnCourse Direct is flexible and nimble to navigate, allowing the small community bank to adjust the reports to fit their unique needs.