ADVICS may be one of the largest manufacturers of automobile brakes, but nothing is slowing it down. The company name is an acronym for Advanced Integrated Chassis Systems. Owned by a Japanese parent company, ADVICS’ North American operation is growing rapidly and now has six locations and more than 2,000 employees in the US and Mexico. A collision of factors led ADVICS to prioritize its employee learning and development program — which quickly led the company to OpenSesame on AWS.

Learning and development gets the green light

When Christina Pellegrini joined ADVICS as a Senior Specialist in the Corporate Training and Development department, the company didn’t have a formal training and development division in North America. “I was hired to help build the department, but right away we were hit with some challenges, including the onset of the pandemic,” she says.  

The impact of the pandemic reinforced the need for professional training that could be delivered remotely. ADVICS started by implementing a Learning Management System (LMS). “With just myself in the department to start, I didn’t have the time or resources to develop content,” says Pellegrini. “We received a free sampling of OpenSesame courses through the LMS, and I was super impressed by the content. It’s relevant, current, extensive, and well done. So, I reached out to OpenSesame to learn more.”  

“OpenSesame is phenomenal — they are the model of great customer service”

Christina Pellegrini, Senior Specialist, Corporate Training and Development

Driving training for a global workforce

With a growing workforce in Mexico, ADVICS plans to leverage the extensive selection of Spanish language content available through OpenSesame on AWS. In addition, Pellegrini has curated a collection of courses available in Japanese and made them available to the teams in that country. “I’m impressed by the volume of multi-language content OpenSesame has available to us,” she says.

Short-form content fuels curiosity

One form of content ADVICS finds especially helpful are the microlearning courses offered through OpenSesame on AWS. “They are short, digestible, and dynamic, and employees like that,” says Pellegrini. “I often enhance them with some of our own material and a voice-over to explain and highlight various points. I love that we can personalize the content in this way.”

Another content offering that employees are gravitating to is Blinkist, a book-summarizing service included with ADVICS’ OpenSesame subscription. “It’s a collection of short, 15-minute summaries of popular professional and personal development books,” explains Pellegrini. “I create an assignment or action plan for employees surrounding the same topic. It’s been well received by employees. Everyone can take a 15-minute learning break.”

Putting the brakes on phishing scams

In addition to mandatory compliance, diversity, harassment, and inclusion curriculum, ADVICS leverages job site safety and computer security awareness courses. “With more and more team members working remotely, training in security awareness is a top priority,” Pellegrini says. “OpenSesame has a large selection of courses available on the topic. We’re finding that OpenSesame courses are a great way to supplement other initiatives ADVICS has implemented to ensure cyber security.

“OpenSesame has been so helpful in finding the right courses and introducing me to new content and publishers I might not have found on my own.”

Christina Pellegrini, Senior Specialist, Corporate Training and Development

Fueling professional development

ADVICS employees are free to browse the curated course catalog and sign up for courses on virtually any topic of interest.

“We recognize that a robust training and development program increases employee engagement and
minimizes turnover,” Pellegrini explains. “In addition to improving retention rates, we’re seeing employees
take courses to upskill or reskill themselves so they can advance professionally. That’s rewarding for us to see and it’s helping to build the ADVICS workforce of the future.”

Currently, ADVICS is structuring multiple career development paths, with training courses supporting
each path. “We wanted formalized paths that would help employees envision their futures here,” says
Pellegrini. “OpenSesame has been so helpful in finding the right courses and introducing me to new content and publishers I might not have found on my own.”

Partner accelerates a successful initiative

OpenSesame holds regular webinars to introduce employers like ADVICS to new and trending content. For example, Pellegrini recently invited members of the HR team to a recent webinar on recruiting.

“OpenSesame is phenomenal — they are the model of great customer service,” concludes Pellegrini. “They help me strategize the development of our training initiatives and provide well-researched recommendations. Plus, they’re just a lot of fun to work with — and some days that’s particularly welcome.”

Delivering Value: OpenSesame leverages several AWS services including: S3, CloudFront, Lambda, Kinesis, and API Gateway

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