Company Background: Taking a Leap Towards Extensive Training
Andrews Distributing, a leading beer and spirits distributor in Texas with a team of nearly 2,000 team members, has been a beloved OpenSesame on AWS customer for years. Their learning program originally centered on compliance training and specialized, house-made education about the industry.
In early 2024, L&D Manager Melissa Tansey worked to expand the program to encourage team members to invest in themselves, increasing OpenSesame content and marketing the program internally to their team.
Challenge: Removing Friction to Make Learning Easy
The first step for Andrews’ learning and development strategy was to remove the barriers between learners and their learning management system, Andrews University. Since most of their team is in the field, they don’t always have access to a computer. Fortunately, their organization uses Cornerstone – which offers a compelling mobile app for all devices.
The Andrews Distributing IT department automatically downloaded the Cornerstone Learning app to every company mobile device, ensuring everyone had access to learning – no matter where their day takes them.
And when a learner logs in, the Learning and Development team wants team members to be greeted by relevant, exciting content. They started featuring top courses on the Cornerstone ‘My Learning’ page and updating those features frequently.
Objectives: Creating a Culture of Self-Starters
Next, the L&D team had to tackle the existing impression that the Andrews University program was only available to check the compliance box.
The L&D team requested cross-functional feedback and suggestions to ensure they added content that best benefited the team. Leaders in the company were asked to evaluate what skills an incoming team member would need to move up within the organization. Then, they started offering OpenSesame content to align with specific skill development. They framed the content as optional but explained that learning and developing themselves would open a path to level up their skillset and careers.
With guidance from leaders across the organization, more learners started exploring the training available to them.
Implementation: Keeping Content Fresh
The biggest challenge to their goal for the learning program was stagnated content. The company had bulk uploaded OpenSesame on AWS courses that were relevant, but new offerings weren’t consistently added or promoted. Without a steady rotation of fresh material, employees weren’t fully aware of the breadth of resources available.
To solve this, Melissa worked with their customer success manager to learn about new publishers and ideas for the type of content that makes sense within the organization. Since the two had a strong working relationship and understood the goals of not just the L&D team, but the organization as a whole, they were able to find exciting and relevant content every week.
Results: Marketing Learning within the Organization
Once the Andrews Distributing team refreshed their content strategy, they turned their attention to engagement and making learning more visible, accessible, and relevant internally across the organization.
They began promoting curated, mobile-friendly courses through internal channels and revamped the “My Learning” homepage with personalized recommendations and top-rated content. Though the L&D team had not previously contributed to company-wide newsletters, the recent improvements, and supporting performance data to match, prompted a strategic shift. They used these communications to spotlight new learning opportunities and drive awareness.
These targeted efforts have led to measurable results:
- 2x increase in enrollments since implementation
- 67% rise in course completions, demonstrating stronger follow-through
- Higher learner engagement, with employees actively participating in training
Looking Ahead: Tying Learning with Broader Goals
In the past couple of years, Andrews Distributing broke into new markets when they introduced spirits and direct-to-consumer sales to their business. As their organization continues to grow and expand in these markets, the L&D team is following closely behind to ensure they can best support the team with this growth.
They’re planning to continue their efforts into 2025, preparing more home-grown content and always keeping a lookout for new ways to engage their teams.
