LearnKey Blog

Embracing Change and Trusting Yourself to Thrive

As our work environment changes, we must learn to adapt and evolve to learn new skills and support the organizations we work for. It is difficult, and I experienced this firsthand over the past year.

With a drastic change in our business, I had to learn new skills, take on a new role, and train others on my skills. It’s easy to feel discouraged or overwhelmed. But let me tell you, resilience doesn’t mean you are immune to these emotions; it’s about finding the strength within to adapt and forge ahead. It’s about being able to bounce back from situations that are tough and learning to grow from them. Remember, change can often lead to exciting opportunities and personal growth. In this case, it happened to me.

I have learned now more than ever how to communicate with other team members and my direct supervisor to ensure that our goals are aligned. With the help of my supervisor, I learned not to be afraid to voice my own opinions and ideas. She taught me that my concerns and ideas are valuable and that expressing them confidently will help me not only find my place in this new team but also help with my self-trust and growth.

Group of people on peak mountain climbing helping team work , travel trekking success business concept

I embraced change and remained adaptable during a period of rapid transformation. This allowed me to explore new opportunities and acquire valuable skills. Although the journey was initially intimidating, I learned to navigate unfamiliar territory by being open to shifting directions. As a result, I experienced self-growth even in uncomfortable circumstances.

So, if you are going through a big change, take a moment, breathe, and believe in yourself. Each experience, be it positive or challenging, has helped you get to where you are now.

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LearnKey celebrates amazing Employee’s 20 year anniversary!

Last week in our St. George, UT office we were fortunate enough to have lunch and celebrate Chip Ehlers twenty (20) year anniversary with LearnKey!

He is one of the most well-respected, hardworking, smart, and dedicated team members you will ever meet.  Over the years Chip has been recognized for his great contributions as he has won recognition for his “can do attitude” many times. His peers were proud to be part of the celebration as Chip is someone we all greatly appreciate having on our team.

He wears many hats when it comes to his role at LearnKey from order entry, invoicing, inventory management and fulfillment to printing and shipping catalogs, Chip never says ‘it can’t be done.’ Of course he is most famous in the St. George office for serenading his coworkers when a catchy song comes on the radio, but its been a while:)

Thank you Chip you truly exemplify our core values: Ease – your easy demeanor, Value– Your work speaks for itself and Trust – well “In Chip we trust”

LearnKey fun day at Woods Ranch in Cedar City, UT

Last Friday July 9th, the LearnKey Utah and Arizona teams got together to reconnect and introduce our newest Know Your Talents and Brighton team members who took the trip from Arizona. With over thirty-four (34) attending we enjoyed great food and got to hear from our founder John Clemons talk about how he created the first course (WordPerfect) back in 1987 founded the company and brought along LearnKey’s first computer, old newspaper magazines, the original accounting ledger, old shirts, pictures, courses in VHS, DVDS and great company history. Then afterwards he broke out his guitar and played great music for an hour or so.

This is the first time we have been able to get together in a large group setting in over seventeen (17) months and everyone had a blast. We talked about how the entire company works so amazing together as one team and how everyone is “connected and are always there for one another”.  There is no me its WE and we all do our best to not let any of our team members down.

I reminded them of the great NFL Head Coach Bill Walsh who said ” if you can get people to laugh and trust you, you can get them to be serious too.” The entire LearnKey team is a true champion.

David Clemons, LearnKey’s former President also shared what he has been up to the past three years launching his HERO non-lethal safety pistol.  One of the surprises is all the LearnKey employee’s received safety training and HERO 2020 non-lethal pistols. It was our way as owners sharing that we care for them and here is a way we can help them protect themselves.  He and his team took the time to teach everyone how to shoot it and protect themselves. It was an awesome afternoon.

To top things off our Kelly Woods brought up his box/race car and cruised it up and down the canyon. Then our very own Sheena Chamberlain took it for a ride which was the icing on the cake to complete a great afternoon of fun.

I am reminded how truly fortunate we are to have great people, all sharing the same goal to help our customers “Improve their Employability Skills Every Day”.

Newest Key Contributor Award winners a true story in teamwork

This year has been filled with new acquisitions like Know Your Talents and most recently the addition of Brighton College. With these exciting additions to the LearnKey family it takes a tremendous amount of work to ensure a smooth transition for our employees, their benefits, and ensuring a smooth onboarding to LearnKey. Then you have the accounting, reporting, IT systems, work, and process flows that need to be integrated; oh, plus you have to continue to run the business. Additionally, since the pandemic LearnKey has been in a growth mode, so there has been new hire on-boarding which is so different in today’s world.

This is where Chad Stocks and Wendi Magnum, two 20-year-plus employees of LearnKey have stepped up big time and earned the Key Contributor Award Winners for the first quarter of 2021!

While things are hectic, exciting, and growing, you need those cool, calm, and collective a.k.a. high pace, high conformance (that’s KYT talk) team members who consistently keep things moving smoothly in the background. And they did that 10 times over for us.

“Chad and Wendi not only welcomed in our newest team members they also rolled out a new benefits plan at the end of last year without a glitch.” said one of the nominating managers. “Wendi came to work every day during the pandemic these past 13 months and never once complained about it.” said another team member.

These two also demonstrate LearnKey’s core values through doing. They are both extremely easy to work with, employees trust them, confide in them, and look to them for guidance all the time. The value they have brought to LearnKey over the last 20+ years is something we will always be grateful for as it is their way of demonstrating our “why” – Improving Employability Every Day!

Once again congratulations on a job well done.

Key Contributor Award Winner: Making it right for our students

We had a great company all hands video conference call yesterday. Just so nice to see everyone, celebrate some of our successes YTD, welcome new team members and announce our 3rd Quarter Key Contributor Award Winner. Just like our previous KCA winner, this person is someone truly having a positive impact on our students.

When we talk about our “Why” Improving employability every day and our core values Ease, Value and Trust this individual is someone all of us have become to respect and appreciate the great work she does helping our students to ensure they are qualified and ready to onboard into our IT Certification Pathways programs. She is very respectful and easy to get along with, has brought tremendous value as an individual and team contributor and someone who has earned the trust of everyone she works with at LearnKey as well as the counselors we serve.

Which is why it gives me great honor to announce that Jade Brown was the recipient of our Key Contributor Award winner this quarter.

Over the last year and a half Jade has implemented, streamlined and improved our enrollment process by developing a vetting process to ensure our students are qualified to be in our program. In addition she is directly responsible from growing this role into a team. Her hard work has directly correlated to having more successful & motivated students/learners better qualified to start are programs. Jade is the type of team players that has a great attitude and ” will do whatever it takes to get the job done” .

Organizationally, Jade took the lead and wrote training manuals and SOP’s for new LK team members so they can successfully onboard in the enrollment department. Her leader, Kelly had this to say “We have great LK team members but man I believe Jade is one of the hardest workers we have” Couple that with her professionalism and courtesy we congratulate you Jade on this great accomplishment.

We all know this has been a challenging year and it’s so exciting to know that we can have some peace of mind in knowing we are making a difference in people’s lives during these times.

Whether its knowing that we helped over forty-six (46) of our students get hired, or helping a student get certified, offering free employability skills training for those unemployed, or assisting the counselors and teachers that are dealing with allot of stress and challenges, yes we have those challenges too, however, they way our team has come together to handle these situations makes me truly proud of each and everyone one of our team members. Our Senior Instructor also had us excited about the current course (IT fundamentals) he and the production team are working on, listening to his passion really made all of us appreciate the hard work that goes into producing courses like this one.

Staying connected during these times is important and we will continue to do that. Today was nice and tomorrow will be better.

LearnKey’s newest Key Contributor Award Winner: Did you know?

One of the biggest challenges each quarter for our leadership team is to select a team or team member to be our Key Contributor Award winner(s). That is the most wonderful problem to have as this award is about going above and beyond “what was expected of you.” We had so many fantastic nominations this past month that it really made the decision-making process tough. Which just shows we have such a great culture; everyone is always working harder to be better. Or as we say “Improving Employability Every Day.”

Speaking of employability, please join me in congratulating Jeff Martin as our newest Key Contributor Award winner and a key member of our employability team. What we learned about Jeff’s accomplishments was simply amazing. His leader, Beth Ciaramello, did a real fun “Did you know” on his nomination.

Did you know?
Jeff  has contacted over one thousand (1000) students in the last 1.5 years. He has taken on additional roles (i.e. student services, workforce readiness coach) with a complete “can do” attitude. He has reviewed four hundred (400)+ resumes in 2020, has successfully placed over twenty five (25) students YTD, on-boarded a new team member, and constantly receives exceptional ratings from students on how good it is to work with him.  Additionally, he fully owned the Employability Team’s assembly of our standard operating procedures.

The best part was to see and hear the feedback from everyone in the company supporting and applauding his selection. He works incredibly hard and he impacts all students’ lives and makes LearnKey an incredible place to work.

Strange times, I was able to finally congratulate him in person in a parking lot, North Scottsdale, so we could get a picture of him holding the award. Thank you for all you do Jeff Martin and the entire LearnKey family. We continue to strive to get better and improve employability every day.

Jeff

#LKEVOLUTION

Incredible attitude & impeccable kindness describes key contributor award winner

One of the greatest assets LearnKey has is our people who drive a great culture. Years of reinforcing our core values, Ease, Value, & Trust, the dividends continue to pay to this day. We know we are fortunate to have awesome team members, especially during these times. Which is why it is so important to celebrate and recognize individuals and teams for their accomplishments.

Our newest quarterly Key Contributor Award Winner Annalise Sluder, LearnKey’s lead writer, is a perfect example. We were pretty excited about launching a new course earlier this year (non IT) covering Communication Skills for Business (CSB), one of the first communication skills certification courses of its kind.

Annalise took extra steps to ensure it was a success. Her manager Marion had this to say: “Always a ‘can do’ attitude and what really stuck out is since taking the lead writing position she has stepped up to better the writing process, trained other team members in Natasha, and M’lissa, then got certified in the CSB course to make sure the workbook and tests were the best they could be. She truly lives our core values, ease, value and trust.”

LearnKey’s Senior Instructor, Jason Manibog had this to say: “We put Annalise in the Lead Writer role and man, has she taken on the lead, with an emphasis on lead. She has steered the writing in a perfect direction, organized all the standards, communicates and adjusts perfectly to our standards and the needs for each course, and she has put anyone who touches writing tasks in the best position to succeed. I know I’ve had to worry far less about how tests/workbooks are as we the authors give her the ‘look’ needed for a course and she takes it from there.”

Our Chief Employability Officer, Beth Ciaramello said something that was so sweet after everyone else chimed in. She said, “Plus, Annalise has an incredible attitude and treats everyone with impeccable kindness.”

That said it all and we sure did enjoy celebrating your award during our all-hands company meeting this past Wednesday, April 29th, 2020!

Bravo Annalise congratulations we are blessed to have you on our team. Every quarter this award gets harder and harder to award as there are so many of our team members who are always going above and beyond to reinforce our “Why”: Improving Employability Every Day.

Holiday celebration with a great trip through Utah

Last week was a whirlwind! It started Friday, December 6th in our St. George corporate office. Both my wife and I were excited to meet our newest team member Shelbie Miller and catch up with recent “newbies” Paula Terry and Camille Wasek. We feel so fortunate to have such an amazing team.

Saturday morning we attended a team building event assisting in the move of Kimberly Johnson “aka” the collector! It was so exciting as she moved into her first new home! A beautiful place and we could not be more happy for Kim and her family. That night we had our holiday party for both St. George and Cedar City offices at Rusty’s Ranch House in Cedar City (see picture). What a turn out and congrats to Jessica Staples and Jordan Cook – winners of our Left, Right, Center Challenge.

Monday, December 9th we met with our St. George team members and I survived a BIG PRANK whereas Mr. Jared Baker decided to scare me with one of his friends who is an Arizona Sheriff, pretending to arrest him by chasing him out the building. All I can think about is how I plan to get back at him. What is that saying “Paybacks are a…”

Tuesday was fun filled as our LearnKey leadership team was sharing their end of year results and 2020 goals for next year. We are so proud as they will be presenting these findings to our board later this month. WE HAVE HAD A GREAT YEAR. That day we also did a “team building workout” with the entire staff lead by our Chief Employability Officer Ms. Beth Ciaramello. It was eye opening for all of us and a great way to improve our communication skills.

Wednesday we spent the majority of the day in our Cedar office again Ms. Ciaramello facilitated an awesome team building workout. Then it was off to Orem, UT.

Thursday we celebrated our partnership with Certiport providing lunch at their offices, followed up with a dinner that included both Certiport and GMetrix partners from their respective leadership teams. Our ask was – What can we do better to make the partnership stronger! The feedback was positive and with a focus of “keep doing what you are doing now because it is working”. Music to my ears.

Friday morning was spent with our GMetrix partner checking out their new offices and then lunch with one of our fearless leaders Marian Eckley. She has done an amazing job leading our entire production team this past year.

Saturday, December 14th, we had our holiday celebration with our Salt Lake City team at Carvers Steak & Seafood House in Sandy, UT (see picture). The service and food was fantastic but the company was incredible.

Throughout the entire trip the observations were consistent while the teams acknowledged we had success and growth this year, better than any of the past years, ALL THEY WANT TO DO IS GET BETTER. You see that is the mentality and culture of our teams always wanting to do better.

This week we end our holiday road trip with celebrations in Scottsdale with our Brighton College team members and the Know Your Talents team. Which again, will focus on a look back and more effort towards getting better.

My wife made it very clear as her observation was we should feel  very blessed to have so many great people on the same page, with the same focus- HOW CAN WE GET BETTER.

Now that is a true team.

Jeff

Ease, Value & Trust- LearnKey’s Key Contributor award winner all that and more

When you have great people it drives the engine of success for your company. Our newest Key Contributor Award Winner- Jacob Gardner is right at the center of that engine. Because of his work ethic over the past four (4) years, respect he has gained from his peers, he epitomizes our core values; Ease, Value and Trust. Every day he comes in and seamlessly does his job better than anyone can on the planet. Technical support, computer ordering (a big part of his job that has doubled over the past year), testing, telecom support he does it all and always as if it is no big deal.

We always talk about our “Why”- Improving Employability Every Day. Jacob knows the work he does directly ties to helping our customers: counselors, K-12 students, adult learners and veterans gain the key skills and industry certifications they need to improve their employability skills.

Just like last quarters Key Contributor Award Winner , a team member who is well respected, we are very fortunate to have him as part of our technical support team working in at our headquarters in St. George, Utah.

Please join me in congratulating Jacob for a job well done.

Bravo!

Newest Key Contributor Award Winner truly believes our “Why”

For a company to be on the same page it has helped a great deal that everyone knows our “Why” – Improving Employability Every Day. Our newest Key Contributor Award recipient Beth Ciaramello lives it every day as our Chief Employability Officer.

Beth’s job is to connect our students to employers, work study programs, and get them job ready/hired. She is also quite worldly as one of her personal accomplishments last year was traveling abroad working remotely.

She is being recognized for taking on three major projects, creating and implementing a ProScan to Placement process (P2P), finding new great talent to support the new process, taking over Brighton Colleges Employability activities, and taking over all recruiting and hiring for LearnKey staff (yes we are hiring).

Her “can do attitude” has resulted in two awesome new team members (Jeff & Wendy) based in Scottsdale, who have learned the P2P process and fully implemented it. We now have improved tracking and placements for both Brighton and LearnKey. Additionally, Beth continues to recruit awesome talent and truly displays our core values (ease, value, and trust).

The value she brings to our internal teams and external customers is exceptional. A great example is a recent partnership she has established with a new employer to our programs. This has required a lot of moving parts to come together and she has stayed with it all the way.

As a leader she knows our business and students as well as anyone else. One of her greatest qualities is the ease in which she works with everyone. Always willing to listen, offer advice and support no matter what. What that has left along the way is a tremendous amount of trust between Beth and everyone she interacts with on our teams.

We are so fortunate to have you on our team. Congratulations Beth for always keeping our Why – Improving Employability Every Day front and center for all of us.

Best,

Jeff