Author: Jeff
Team Player & “Can Do” approach is the way to do your job!
I tell people all the time – if you want to add value to your organization and stand out, learn these three things: 1) Become a stellar team player, 2) Be resourceful, and 3) Possess a “can do” approach to problem solving. You do those three things well and you will stand out in comparison to the competition.
One of our very own employees, who just so happens to be our newest employee of the month Brad Washburn, has been recognized for demonstrating similar attributes for his work over the past year. Here is some of the nomination and kind words one of our leaders shared about Brad and how he demonstrates our core values (Ease, Value and Trust):
“Brad has spent his time creating LearnCast courses for our mobile library. He created these courses independently and with Ease. In that short time, he produced 109 courses with a wide variety of topics appealing to all types of learners. Next, he worked on developing and configuring the wide screen settings for our LearnKey courses. He was tasked to recapture 8 hefty courses in just a few months and He did it! Now our clients will be able to watch our Adobe Suite in widescreen this Fall. He has won my Trust as being a go to person to get the job done and on time. His work has brought Value to our company. Brad is a pleasure to work with and I am happy to have him on my team!”
Brad’s actions and accomplishment speak to his contributions and we are very appreciative to have him on our team. As we do every Better Learning Systems (BLS) employee of the month, we share with you some fun facts about Brad so you can get to know him better:
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IT Leader: Problem solver & Orchestrator
In the world of technology, especially education through video based training, there are a lot of “moving parts”. We are talking hardware, software, desktop support, third party support vendors, streaming – you name it, we have to host and support it. That is why you need great individuals who can solve problems and orchestrate all technology activities to keep us in business.
That is why I am pleased to announce our IT Leader and Orchestrator Ron Larsen is this months LearnKey/Better Learning Systems employee of the month. His nomination comes after some major milestones: centralizing our support and hosting services, improving OnlineExpert’s “up time” from 98% to 99.9%, and reducing some key expenses along the way.
Ron demonstrates our core values: Ease, Value and Trust in so many ways. Here is what one of his peers had to say:
“As LearnKey’s IT manager, he and his team ensure that LearnKey’s Sales, Client Services, Shipping, Accounting, HR, Marketing, and Production Departments are all able to do their jobs. Quite simply, without Ron and his efforts, LearnKey wouldn’t be able to produce it’s content; Ron makes it easy for the employees of LearnKey and provides value in making things happen that many of us never see, and in some cases are not even aware of. He works behind the scenes a lot of the time moving or upgrading servers to provide clients with a better experience and improving efficiency of the LK team. He builds Trust by simply doing what he says he will do.
Cool under pressure – That’s Tayce
Every month I get to brag about one of our team members at Better Learning Systems. Our newest employee of the month is known for leading multiple projects, always being clear and concise with his communications, and demonstrating the unique ability to maintain composure each and every day. That’s right, LearKey’s version of “cool hand Luke” goes to Tayce Robinson!
Not only has he demonstrated his core values, he has done it taking on a new lead role earlier this year as well. Here is what his Senior Lead Brittni Traynor had to say:
“I have been able to work closely with Tayce for over a year now and firmly believe he is the embodiment of the LearnKey core values- Ease, Trust, and Value. While working here, he has been perusing a master’s degree, and has had his share of communal and other professional obligations, but you would never know he is being pulled in so many different directions. He is always willing to take on new challenges and meet increasingly tighter deadlines. He is the Senior Writer of the Writing Team and he leads his team to success on a daily basis. He has the patience of a saint. It doesn’t matter the situation or the amount of pressure, he simply nods his head, shrugs his shoulders, and gets the project done. It is for these reasons, among a long list of others, that he exemplary team player in the Cedar City office. I am not sure what we would do without him”.
LearnKey’s Gregg Akin – always doing his job!
Some of the greatest leaders in the world use the same phrase to describe what they need their team members to do, which is to “just do your job and trust that your other teammates will do theirs”. You hear it time and time again, just watch a Patriots game and you will see their head coach Bill Belichick screaming that phrase to each sub team (i.e. offense, defense, special teams) when they are on the sidelines. Sounds so simple, however, staying focused and reassuring each team member that if they “just do their job” and trust their teammate to do their job too – they will win.
When you have high performing teams, TRUST is the key ingredient to success, which is why it is one of or core values. LearnKey’s Gregg Akin, who is our newest employee of the month, is a perfect example of someone who comes in and does his job, day in and day out. That is why his manager Scott Walker nominated Gregg and had these comments to say about him:
“Gregg has demonstrated our Core values in many ways. He has brought Value to Learnkey by providing a great work ethic, following up with clients that could have easily been lost. He has taken a huge load off of Client Services, by importing thousands of students in the past several months, training teachers and helping them with the ease of OnlineExpert. You can trust him to follow through with any tasks until they are finished – he gets results. He understands the importance and value of our clients. He is very Easy to receive instructions and complete tasks assigned to him, then goes the extra mile to accomplish them to get results.
Gregg is a great asset to LearnKey, and his dedication and hard work show his team members not only is he doing his job, but he is trusting that his other team members will do their job (i.e. selling, creating and producing great video based training).
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Team player exudes talent and “can do” attitude
Team player exudes talent, builds trust and makes cool courses!
One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is sharing to the world what great people we have as part of the Better Learning Systems/LearnKey family. What is even better is when newbies join the team and spread their positive energy making an immediate impact and generating positive results.
That could not be more evident than when Marian Eckley joined our Salt Lake City production team last October. From the day she started it’s been a “breath of fresh air” for the entire team. For someone who is new to a team and to build trust with the existing team members so fast is amazing. In the beginning it was not easy the transition happened fast and the team was required to not miss a beat as we were beginning full production of our Adobe CS6 rollout. What did Marian do? Not only did she “dig” in and learn what we were doing, but she also drove higher expectations and confidence to a group that welcomed it.
Here’s what her manager Liz McEuen had to say during Marians nomination:
“I have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with Marian for the last several months and she naturally embodies our core values of trust, ease and value. Anyone who works with Marian knows they can trust her to finish a project on time and with a production value. When you are working in video production problems and questions may come up but not to worry. She will solve the problem with ease and a clear understanding of what needs to happen to achieve the result we are looking for”.
We are so proud of Marian’s success as she has made several changes to our editing process and these changes have lead to a better product in a shorter amount of time making her extremely valuable to the company.
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Have a question about LearnKey training or support? I bet KJ has the answer!
At Better Learning Systems, while supporting hundreds of thousands of users, we get a lot of questions about training: how to use our learning systems, technical support, how to deliver our courses to third world countries with no internet… the list goes on and on. It really makes you appreciate those employees who spend the time to have the product knowledge and experience to answer those questions. One person who prides himself in helping people is Kevin Jacobsen our February employee of the month. It’s the one thing we can get right each and every time we interact with our customers when they ask for our help. Kevin truly takes pride in being professional, knowledgeable, respectful and courteous at all times.
Kevin’s leadership team had this to say about his nomination and selection:
“Over the past two months Kevin has demonstrated our core values in several ways. Providing great value by putting in additional hours, supporting customers’ inquires over the phones, in addition to assisting employees with technical needs internally. He is considered a Trusted resource as he will always follow through with what he is given. He has transitioned into a new role and made it easy for all parties who interact with him regarding technical support.
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There is no “I” in LearnKey or Team!
As we move into February, it’s time again for me to celebrate another employee accomplishment. This has to do with one of our Salt Lake City team members who has demonstrated not only the importance of being a team player, but one who does it on a consistent basis. Since LearnKey is dependent on everyone working together as a team, it means there is no “I” in LearnKey or team! It gives me great pleasure to welcome Rob McNeil as a Better Learning Systems/LearnKey employee of the month. You see Rob is someone who comes to work everyday, on time with the mentality of “do what needs to get done” and how refreshing it is for us to have such a steady employee. His peers VALUE his contributions as he has clearly earned their TRUST and his work effort makes it EASY for everyone.
His manager had this to say during his nomination:
“When you are working in the trenches you want someone who you can trust to get the job done. Rob McNeil is that person! Rob not only get his work done but he embodies the core value of ease. He is happy to take on a project and will see it through to completion. I value the skill set Rob brings to both the table and the trenches! He is a major asset to our studio and I am so thrilled that he is on my team.”
It has not always been easy in our Salt Lake City office. In order to get better at producing courses we had to bring on new team members, and never once did Rob question our decisions to do so. What he did do was welcome these new team members with open arms and a “can do” attitude. We are so fortunate to have Rob on our team.
Happy New Year means more great Employees of the Month!
Preparing for the start of the new year at LearnKey meant all kinds of exciting things we planned to kick off, such as just releasing a new course on how to learn online, MasterExams for IC³, A+ and Network+ courses, and our Salt Lake City and Cedar City teams are busy working on Adobe and more sales training. So what could be better? How about welcoming a new employee of the month: Michael Barker!
Michael is part of our design team and is working from our St. George office. I guess you could say he’s one of our mobile workers, being that the rest of his team resides in another city. Here’s what one of our managers in Cedar City had to say about Michael:
“I’ve had the great opportunity to work one-on-one with Michael in the past several weeks and feel he embodies our core values in so many ways: Ease—anyone who has worked with Michael on a project knows that it is easy to do. He removes ego from the equation and focuses on delivering the best overall product. Though known as the Ninja (due to his quiet demeanor) he communicates concerns or questions very easily. Value—everything Michael does he does with the best value in mind, and I don’t think he even realizes it. Trust—Michael is trusted (did you see the LK certification emblem?) to do excellent work and trusts that we are the best at what we do.”
When you hear such awesome things about a team member it just reinforces the importance of teamwork and accountability. We are so fortunate to have Michael on our team and really want to wish him thanks for all he does.
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“A” Players- They work at it all the time!
At Better Learning Systems we recently announced the formation of an “A” Team within our LearnKey company who will lead strategic sales in our K-12 vertical. While we are very excited about the group during one of our conversations with a LearnKey team member Justin Walker ( a new member all of 8 months) explaining the realignment details we asked him if he had any questions. He answered “Yes” How can I be a member of the “A” team? The best part of all was when Lori and I heard that response- we both looked at each other and said that is EXACTLY what we expected to hear from Justin. That’s because “A” players work at it all the time and Justin is quickly becoming an “A Player”. He is willing and able to do whatever it takes to be a good team player for the right cause and working his “tail off” (small inside joke).
It is with great pride we announce that Justin Walker is our most recent November/December employee of the month. Over the past eight months Justin has worked extremely hard to learn the elearning industry, the “ins and outs” of selling to the education market, and most importantly do whatever it takes to be a great team player. He has demonstrated our core values making it Easy for people to work with him because he is a good listener. Second, he is quickly learning the importance of understanding what Value he can bring to not only his external customers but internal team members as well. Third, understanding the importance of patience while he builds his pipeline knowing that it takes time to build Trust, which is the trigger to successful partnerships.
Here are some fun facts about Justin so all of you can get to know him a little better:
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Lead by Example- LearnKey employee of the month’s recipe
Writing is an important part of our business. It can be objectives for an upcoming course, a workbook or projects used in the classroom environment, or even a MasterExam thats going to help a student/learner get college or career ready, all very important parts of the learning experience. At LearnKey we are fortunate to have Brittni Traynor who, as a lead agent for our Technical Writing team, makes sure all our writing activities get done on time.
Even better, is that her leadership team voted Brittni our October employee of the month for hard work and never ending commitment to lead by example. That’s right, she jumps in to help her team on a daily basis. Here is what her manager Brad Washburn had to say about her :
“As a team lead, she is very good at helping her team stay focused and motivated. She has forged a strong bond between the members of her team and turned them into a family”.
We are fortunate to have Brittni who truly does demonstrate our core values around Ease, Value and Trust. She makes it easy for her team members to work with her, shows them her support and how much she Values their work each and every day, in addition to building a level of trust that motivates them to work together and operating at a high performing capacity.
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