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US | Travel and Tourism

US vacation rental gurus, Vacasa, need fast, flexible training that keeps their growing employee population up to speed and on their toes. Thanks to Elucidat, they’ve been able to take a data-driven approach to creating flexible, modular elearning that empowers their 2,500 employees to be their best. With a wealth of data at their fingertips that their previous LMS simply couldn’t provide, the only way is up, for their training. As it is for their business!

Ben Digman

“The analytics tool is a game changer for us. Now, we’re solving problems we didn’t even know we had.”

Ben Digman Learning Experience Design Manager

Shaver Lake image from Vacasa's website
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Introduction

Less than a decade ago, Vacasa was a modest vacation rental company based in the US. A Learning and Development team of two people supported employees with elearning that was created, delivered and managed using an LMS.

 

Then, the business shot into the stratosphere. Holiday makers all over the US, South America and beyond were choosing Vacasa to make their vacation rentals easy, and the company grew by 16,000%.

 

The need for fast, flexible training was paramount, and Vacasa needed technologies that could adapt and keep up. There was a mountain to climb and the L&D team needed the right equipment to get over it! Elucidat brought the flex required and the Analytics that enabled them to take their training to its required destinations, and fast.

The Challenge – A Growing, Remote Employee Base

 

It’s a familiar story. A growing company, a rising demand for training, and a tiny L&D team.

Vacasa sat at the extremes, however. With the company growing 16,000% in just four years, the L&D team of two had rights to feel nervous.

 

“As you can imagine, two people trying to scale with an inflexible system was less than ideal” – Ben Digman, Learning Experience Design Manager

 

Vacasa’s employee base was bigger and more varied than ever before. From housekeepers in Oregon to property managers in Mexico and so many more, employees needed high quality, mobile-ready training to enable them to deliver a consistent service around the globe. But how?

The Solution – Elucidat & It’s Analytics

 

Having identified that content creation was their LMS’s weak spot, Ben went on the hunt for an authoring tool to complement their technology stack.

 

“Because we needed our elearning modules to be SCORM compliant, we started to explore solutions like Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline, and xAPI, but we couldn’t find an elearning developer who was strong enough in instructional design to use those tools”

 

“We finally found the solution that checked every box: Elucidat. The platform was easy to use and also allowed us to build the quality of courses we expected.”  – Ben Digman

 

For Ben, discovering Elucidat was a turning point; suddenly, the team was able to deliver SCORM compliant elearning at speed and scale without compromising on the quality of the learning experience. Of course, it’s responsive too so works perfectly on mobiles for busy staff in various locations.

 

However, the real transformation came when the team at Vacasa began digging into the powerful Analytics Elucidat provides.

 

“I was blown away that Elucidat allowed us to immediately identify problems within our courses we didn’t even know were there.”

Image of a Vacasa holiday rental with deck chairs and water

The Outcome – Delivering More Impact

 

With a wealth of data at their fingertips that their previous LMS simply couldn’t provide, Learning Experience Designers were able to measure the impact their elearning was having and make design decisions based on facts rather than hunches.

 

“I could see that, of the 700 people who had taken a required lesson over the last year, only 10–15% had actually completed it”  – Ben Digman

 

This new focus on data fitted perfectly with Vacasa’s design ethos. Truly understanding the problem was already the first step. Analytics meant they could spot where hot fixes and more strategic improvements were needed. And that’s exactly what they set out to do – increase the quality, the take-up and deliver better ROI.

 

“The analytics tool is a game changer for us. Now, we’re solving problems we didn’t even know we had” 

 

Soon they had achieved 38,000 enrolments in their elearning.

 

“While I initially saw Elucidat as a supplemental platform, it’s now very much the opposite. Elucidat is now our first choice as a course creation tool. And it’s changing the way we build our instructional design team. We’re hiring people who have years of development experience, and they default to creating with Elucidat” 

In Summary

 

From initially searching for a fast-paced authoring platform that supported mobile-learning, Vacasa soon uncapped Elucidat’s secret weapon: learning analytics.

 

  • Learning Analytics: They used detailed learner analytics from inside Elucidat, which goes beyond traditional LMS data, to drive up quality and ROI
  • Responsive learning: Vacasa opted for an authoring platform that was responsive so they can deliver mobile-ready learning to their remote workforce, where ever they are.
  • Speed: With a need for speed and a growing workforce, Vacasa needed an authoring platform that could flex and support this