Category: Just For Fun
Honoring our Veterans
One of my favorite days at LearnKey is Veteran’s Day. The parade route in St. George Ut goes directly past our corporate office, and those of us that can get away from the phones are able to show our support to the veteran’s in our community. I look forward to it every year and thouroughly enjoy the amazing photo opportunities that come by, flags and uniforms, marching bands, balloons and lots of old cars. It’s fun and beautiful, and always makes me proud and sad at the same time.
I love seeing the men and women in their uniforms, especially the old-times from the world wars. Today I learned that we have 4 remaining Pearl Harbor survivors in our community, and at least one of them was in the parade today. That’s pretty incredible. It is a sombering thought to see them replaced with much younger veteran’s, young men and women that have already faught to make the world a better place.
LearnKey has been developing programs to support our veteran’s for some time now. We are very proud to offer programs that will create better lives for the men and women that have given so much to protect and serve.
I want to send a special shout out to all of the veterans but especially to those that I work with on a daily basis here at LearnKey. Thank you for your service.
We have all been touched by war, and most of us know someone that has faught for our freedom. Many of us have loved ones that are serving this very day. I hope that I am always able to attend the Veteran’s Day Parade, to show my support and thankfulness for a job well done.
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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Course Release Celebration
What a crazy year it has been. Remeber back in May when I told everyone to be excited for the end of Summer? Well there is no place where that statement was more true than here at LearnKey. Don’t get me wrong we love the great summer weather here is Southern Utah, but over the past few months the LearnKey team has been busy creating and releasing our latest A+, Network+, and IC³ courses. These courses turned out totally awesome, and if you have not had a chance to look at them, follow the previous links to view their product overviews.
We also had the big release of our Career Readiness Bundle, which includes courses that offers valuable information to teens and those who are trying to enter the workforce. Take a look at the course overview.
Great People – Team Player stands out in Cedar City
There are a variety of different definitions around being a team player, but the one that stands out to me recently is the one demonstrated last month by Carole Heaton in our LearnKey video production office in Cedar City, UT. It is what made her our employee of the month for September 2012. Our team has just completed the roll out of: A+ 2012, IC³ GS4 and our Career Readiness bundle of courses (14 in total). At the last minute, we identified several ways to enhance the learning experience for A+ 2012 which meant we needed people to work overtime. When we needed help the most to meet our deadlines, it was Carole Heaton who stepped up big time.
Everyone in our Cedar office had been working overtime hours, everyone was tired. These projects needed to be delivered on time and Carole was willing to go the extra mile and work practically around the clock to help us meet our deadlines. Here is what her manager had to say when he nominated her for employee of the month:
“It seems like I can come into the office at just about any time, day or night, and find Carole either at her desk or online on my IM. She has put in more hours over the last month than any other member of her team. She is always willing to do whatever is asked of her as soon as it is asked, which has provided that level of Ease in getting fixes and files done on a tight deadline. I can always Trust that her files will look good and the fixes she is asked to do will be done correctly. She is always a positive force in the office, despite doing the lion’s share of work, and she can always be counted on to have a ready smile and a laugh available.”
Everyday in some way shape or form we communicate about our core values – Ease, Value and Trust. Carole clearly demonstrated all three of them by making it easier for us to meet our deadlines, valuing the importance of these courses and what it meant to get them out on time, and trusting the broader team that these improvements did merit being implemented for the benefit of our customers/learners. I thank you Carole for all your efforts.
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Big Picture & Team Player – Sounds like Sarah!
When you merge companies you spend a lot of time educating employees and existing customers on the benefits and big picture as to why these companies have decided to come together. Its great to see when customers and employees really “get” the value and do see the big picture. In our company, there has been no better demonstration of that than from Sarah Blik, our August Employee of the month and Sales Champion for Predix. We call her the ultimate team player, or as her leader put it, “She will play on anyone’s team to help them with their goal our objective.”
Demonstrating our core values around ease, value and trust is something Sarah does everyday. Value comes from understanding the big picture and being able to demonstrate that to our customers – she does that with Ease and has earned the Trust of every BLS employee she comes in touch with. Patience and process is something you will always get from Sarah, and she demonstrated some serious patience when she and Lori Coruccini were staying in Nashville with the Gaylord explosion earlier this year. That experience enabled her to remove sleeping in the Grand Ole Opry for one night off her life “bucket list” too!
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When employees find better solutions- You know you have a winner!
LearnKey’s Colby Carter is someone who takes pride in his work and is always looking to make this better. That is why he is our July employee of the month! In addition to carrying a large workload the past few months, Colby made sure his internal and external customers were taken care of with each and every call. For those of you who don’t know Colby, he’s our technical support expert and member of the LearnKey client services team. His amazing patience and professionalism during this period did not go unnoticed. Demonstrating our BLS Core values loud and clear. Everyone in LearnKey, Trusts him because he does what he says he is going to do. Making it Easy for anyone who needs his assistance.
In addition to maintaining his cool while we were short staffed in technical support, he took it upon himself to explore a better way to deliver LearnKey content through flash drives, creating more Value in our distribution options. Here’s what his manager Kim Johnson had to say:
“Colby did not wait to be asked, he just did – coordinating calls with internal stakeholders and our IT support vendor. He was prepared, did his due diligence and paved the way for helping LearnKey continue to be a leader providing our learning content in many different ways. Because of his efforts there are potential clients in third world countries now asking for our content in that delivery method.”
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Can do, will do – watch me do it!
Once again one of our super star employees demonstrates a “can do attitude” by willing to take on additional duties without even thinking twice. Our leadership team has seen it and I witnessed it too. That’s because Chip Ehlers, LearnKey’s Employee of the Month for June, is all about being a team player. When we needed him to take over all of our shipping and trade show coordination activities, “No problem.” Then we asked him to take on additional duties supporting accounting and order entry, once again “Can do”. That is the sign of a true team player and someone who demonstrates our core values. Here’s what his manager Chad Stocks had to say about Chip….
“Chip has taken on a lot of extra duties over the last several months with a “can-do” attitude. He never complains or shows any kind of bad attitude. Chip demonstrates our core values of Ease, Value and Trust in everything he does. Chip makes work-life easier for those around him from Wendi and myself to supporting the sales team in entering orders and supporting trade shows. We all benefit from the value he brings from his experience and the previously mentioned willingness to take on extra duties without complaint. And finally, everyone knows that they can trust Chip to get the job done. We can rely on him to be here when he says he will be here and to do what he says he will do.”
May Employee of the Month – Recognized for his “break/fix” skills!
At LearnKey, we have employees who take great pride in creating video training courses in our Salt Lake City, UT studios, those who are great at selling, supporting, marketing and promoting our courseware in our St. George offices, and those team members who finish our courses through post production process in Cedar City, UT.
Then there are team members like our May employee of the month Val Deuel, a super quality control agent who does everything he can to “break” our courses prior to them being released and loaded into our Learning Management System (onlineexpert.com). Our quality control team is a true asset to the LearnKey family, and we our proud of the great work they do.
His leadership team had these great things to say about Val:
“He embodies our core values of Trust, Value, and Ease, and maintains a positive attitude in everything he does. Trust – Val can always be trusted to complete whatever work he is given promptly and efficiently. He is not afraid to ask for help or further instructions when needed and he never complains, regardless the task. He shows trust in his supervisors by being willing to complete whatever task he is assigned. Val embodies the core value of Value in his willingness and ability to complete tasks. Through Val’s hard work he made it very Easy for us to select him as our May employe of the month.
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April Employee of the month = True Champion!
When it comes to being a true champion within our Better Learning Systems (BLS) companies, look no further than Kim Gillcoatt, who holds the title of Client Services Champion for a reason. She offers outstanding support to all teams in our BLS company, exemplifying Ease, Value and Trust every day. Kim provides Ease in coordination of projects internally and externally for our customers; and Ease in terms of working together across our 3 companies. She has everyone’s back – which is why it was a landslide in voting her employee of the month for April!
Kim has been an employee of Predix going on three years. Here’s what Lori C. had to say:
“Her Value is seen 24X7 doing whatever it takes to accomplish a task that has been given to her. In the past 2 years since she has been in this role, she has never missed a committed deadline – which is truly remarkable. Kim provides Value daily in supporting the executive team in numerous projects for all of BLS in research projects, coordination for internal employees and external clients, sales efforts, marketing, recruiting efforts, and client servicing”.
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Happy 25th Anniversary, LearnKey!
This year, LearnKey turns 25 years old! We’ve come a long way in 25 years, going from a small one-man office producing VHS video, to an amazing group of people spanning multiple offices which are dedicated to providing the best eLearning products we can produce.
LearnKey now has three different offices in Utah, with distributors all over the world providing our courseware to areas we never even thought possible when the company was founded. And now with our Better Learning Systems sister companies LearnCast and Predix, our reach is even larger.
Here are a few facts about when LearnKey first started out:
- LearnKey came to be in 1987. Official Incorporation date: March 20, 1987
- The first video produced was WordPertfect 4.2 for DOS
- Our first product was edited and packaged in April/May 1987, and the first VHS arrived October 28, 1987.
Thanks for being there with us over the years, and may there be many more in the future!