Leveraging Technology to Improve LMS

Roy Chew, APAC Learning and Organizational Lead,Deputy Director, GlobalFoundries

In 2020, COVID shook the world. Along with the calamities and disruptions, it also catalyzed a change in mindset and brought about a new way of working where digitalization held front. In the area of Learning & Development, there have been innumerable implications on the way learning takes place in the corporate arena. Transformation abounds at GlobalFoundries (GF) whichis integratingadvanced manufacturing facilities across the world and harmonizing diverse cultures towards a global vision. Given these changes, the advancement in LMS (Learning Management System) technologies could not have come at a better time to provide a point of alignment and clarity for the organization in the learning space.

"Considering the global system scale, a cloud solution is the only way to go even if it would be constrained by the degree of customization."

To appreciate the situation better, let us take a step back to a few years ago where it all started, where GF began to build on the vision of a best-in-class globalized LMS.To support its business and growth strategies, GF grew through acquisition of fabrication plants, and this inevitably led to the existence of different learning systems and training processes. While the aim of unification and standardization is clear,meticulous considerations were taken to evaluate and implement the ONEGF learning system that would lead to optimal benefits with minimal pain and enable a robust customer audit process.

Each local LMS has its pros and cons. Perspectives also differ due to the familiarity and contextualization of the LMS acrossdifferent sites. But considering the global system scale, a cloud solution is the only way to go even if it would be constrained by the degree of customization. This new direction required significant effort and stakeholder management to align the team on the go-forward strategy.Additional change efforts were requiredforthe global standardizationof training methodology, training specifications, and even tasks and competency definitions.

A global task force was set up comprising vendors, Learning & Development specialists, as well asLMS and IT experts from different GF locations, the task force worked hard at fanning out the ONEGF LMS site by site. The progressive approach was deliberate and tactical due to operational concerns – while systems are getting upgraded, operations cannot be affected.Differences in culture and functions can also bring about nuances that are easy to miss in a simultaneous blanket deployment. For instance, for non-native speakers, training on the new LMS might need to be slowed down and paced out to enable everyone to learn how to navigate and use the new system proficiently.

Fast forward to current times, we are proud to share that GF now has a unified state-of-the-art ONEGF LMS that replaces several legacy learning systems. Many exciting new features havemade it much easier for employees to access and track their learning and development activities while providing a better learning experience with the elimination of many administrative constraints to access relevant learning content and training across the globe.

This change is timely as COVID diverted a huge amount of training focus towards e-learning and a virtual facilitation format which would have been tenuous if not for this ONEGF LMS. This important milestone brings GF closer in fulfilling its promise to employees to streamline and combine key systems across the company as we strive to “deliver a new era of more” in our mission to change the industry that is changing the world!