DJSIR takes compliance training and performance management to the next level with Totara TXP v14 upgrade

The Victorian State Government Department of Jobs, Skills, Industry and Regions (DJSIR) is firmly focused on driving a strong and resilient economy that benefits all Victorians (Australia) – by creating more opportunities for people through jobs and skills; supporting businesses and industries to grow and prosper; and building vibrant communities and regions.

Established on 1 January 2023, our work spans numerous portfolios, supporting departmental ministers and operating across metropolitan, regional and international offices. We oversee various public entities, including public corporations, regulatory authorities and specialist boards.

The Challenge

DJSIR was using an old, unsupported version of Totara LMS (v2.9) originally implemented 7 years ago which was very outdated, using legacy and now unsupported features. This made our LMS site difficult to support and maintain. The LMS site was no longer fit for purpose, mandatory compliance training was not being tracked for refresher requirements, UI was not mobile response nor multi device and didn’t meet the Victorian Government’s required web accessibility standards. Our LMS was also limited in the modern user experience, modern UI and new features that it could offer our LMS administrators and employees for their learning development.

The Solution

Working with our local Totara Partner (Androgogic) DJSIR upgraded our Totara LMS site from v2.9 to Totara TXP v14. This involved major reconfiguration, data cleanse, course content review and utilisation of the new, enhanced, available features in the Totara Learn v14 and Totara Perform v14 modules. The upgrade also included several Androgogic custom Totara plugins and custom HR data sync and LMS data export methods.

The Totara TXP v14 solution provided DJSIR with a more modern, supported, integrated, and feature rich LMS and Performance management system. This included a suite of new functionality to improve the site administration and automation as well as a modern UI/UX, a mobile responsive and multi device theme, improved web accessibility standards, more robust Performance activity management, improved custom graphical reporting, integration with LinkedIn Learning and other LTI content, better compliance training management using the Certification features.

Results

The upgraded Totara TXP (v14) solution provided a modern, supported, integrated and feature rich LMS and Performance management system that included a suite of new functionality used to improve site administration and automation, a modern UI/UX, a mobile responsive and multi device theme, improved web accessibility standards, more robust Performance activity management, improved graphical reporting, improved learning catalogue, new user dashboards, integration with LinkedIn Learning and better management and utilisation of external training evidence for users.

Learning and Development course completion overview statistics for 2022 & 2023:

Totara Learn v14 also allowed us to improve our department wide mandatory compliance training management using the Certification features for all 4,500 DJSIR employees that included:

• Automated Certification assignment to users (based on job assignments and dynamic audiences),
• Certification completion status and refresher requirement tracking (annual, biennial, and triennial)
• Certification reporting at both high level (department org hierarchy) and individual users)

Current mandatory training completion rates for all DJSIR staff for the 2022/23 PDP cycle:

Our Totara TXP v14 upgrade also included several Androgogic custom Totara plugins including a comprehensive pre-processed HR data sync plugin that has configurable user deduplication rules and validation, data sync logs, data file archiving and more features usual site administration features. As a result, we were able to configure and sync more accurate and detailed Organisation Hierarchy, Position Hierarchy, Goal and Competency frameworks for use in Totara Learn and Totara Perform.

These comprehensive hierarchies allow Totara to auto assign the relevant organisation, position, goals and competencies to all users, which can then be utilised by dynamic audiences, organisation/position hierarchy filters and rules as well as job assignment details for user profiles. Androgogic also provided a custom learning data export plugin to send scheduled specific Totara Learn completion data multiple times daily to other DJSIR finance (Oracle) and safety systems (SIMS) to import and link to users with other delegations and roles ensuring they have completed the required training to remain compliant.

With Totara Perform (v14) we were able to automate assignment of over 10,500 individual Totara performance (PDP) activities for all employees in last (financial) year’s 2021/2022 Performance Development Plan (PDP) cycle and achieved a completion rate of over 90% for all assigned performance development activities:

The current 2022/23 PDP cycle has over 7,300 individual performance activities assigned to all employees with a 80% (at time of writing) completion rate for the current available, assigned performance development activities:

“The flexibility and intuitive design of Totara has enabled us to scale up and continually adapt to meet the changing needs of a diverse, large government department. The last few years have presented unique challenges (COVID-19, remote and hybrid working, machinery of government changes) and we have been able to flex and continually improve our offerings to support our learning and performance in a new environment.”

– Manager Leadership, Performance and Development