Studi kasus
Industri
Government
Kantor Pusat Perusahaan
Los Angeles, California, USA
Jumlah Karyawan
100,000+
Lokasi Kantor
North America
County of Los Angeles Is the First to Reach 2 Million Udemy Learning Hours
Udemy mendorong hasil bisnis
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As the largest county in the United States, the County of Los Angeles (County) has its work cut out for it. Not only does it have almost 10 million residents to care for, it’s also responsible for the wellbeing and development of 100,000 employees spread across 39 different departments.
Since 2019, the County’s Department of Human Resources (DHR) has used Udemy Business to provide learning and development opportunities to all County employees – and it’s seen some exceptional results. To date, County employees have clocked more than 2 million learning hours and completed over 580,000 courses. The investment has seen an astounding 1,268% ROI.
Providing Training and Education at Scope and at Scale
LA County’s learning and development needs are defined by two challenges, scale and scope. Its 100,000 employees work across 39 different departments that deliver a variety of services, including public safety, healthcare, social work, art and cultural, and beyond. And within each of these departments are frontline workers, the executives who oversee operations, and everyone in between.
It’s the County’s goal to provide scalable, relevant, and high-quality professional development for each of these employees – all while managing diverse schedules, locations, and operational and personal needs. But traditional classroom training was logistically challenging and costly, and DHR’s Learning and Development (L&D) resources were stretched to meet the scale and speed required for emerging initiatives and essential programs.
“The product we previously had was for 30,000 employees,” says Marc Shartzer, HR Principal Analyst at the County of LA’s Department of Human Resources. “But we wanted to give all 100,000-plus employees access to unlimited training and support them in achieving what they sought to accomplish.”
The catalyst for change came in 2019, with a need to implement gender diversity training across the organization. Developing its own course materials would have cost DHR approximately $87,000 dollars while introducing critical delays, so the organization turned to Udemy Business.
“Udemy was the best product to help us meet our diversity training goals, and it could do it while also offering a bigger package of courses,” says Shartzer. “It enabled us to provide every employee with access to a large bank of great training to help them grow in their careers.”
HR Principal Analyst, Los Angeles County
Udemy Business for Everyone, Everywhere
With Udemy Business, DHR was able to meet its gender diversity training goals and secure a grant of $1.5 million in the process. Following this success, and recognizing the platform’s value, DHR wanted to ensure employees took advantage of its new resource. What followed was its roll out of 25 different internal marketing campaigns coupled with a range of resources and a support infrastructure to promote the benefits of Udemy Business. This initially saw around 20,000 early adopters use their accounts. But perhaps the biggest impetus for adoption came in the form of a challenge.
“Once we’d launched Udemy, COVID hit right away and many of our employees suddenly had to work from home,” says Shartzer. “Udemy courses came to the rescue in that regard. They not only helped us handle the situation, but also helped users see the value of Udemy and start to change the way they learn.”
During this period, Udemy provided a platform for essential skills development for telework working, helped leaders adapt to managing virtual teams en masse, and delivered learning resources to aid employee wellness and stress management. Anytime, anywhere accessibility also ensured professional development could continue uninterrupted – with one month seeing 112,000 hours of learning. Offering employees great development opportunities is one of the many attractive advantages the County offers.
“People stay with the County for a reason, and this is one way to help them stay,” says Shartzer. “Udemy helps them feel supported, stay relevant and nimble, and achieve their career-for-life goals.”
Bespoke learning paths and a growing catalogue of courses
Today DHR provides a Udemy Business license for every single employee. Each County department has dedicated Udemy Administrators who work with management to implement training and carry out strategic plans to meet their specific department’s needs.
The platform’s extensive range of courses and custom learning paths allows DHR to cater to the bespoke learning requirements of individuals, whether that’s helping them prepare for certification exams, practice vital skills like Microsoft Excel proficiency, or ready themselves for the use of AI in the workplace.
Executives, meanwhile, often learn management techniques and areas like change management, strategic management, creating and communicating vision, or other critical skills to help them better guide their muti-dimensional operation and people through dynamic environments.
In-depth insights from these learning engagements are gleaned from Udemy’s analytics tools, providing complete visibility into learning, where it’s taking place, and what topics are being covered – all of which feeds into future strategy.
“We curated specific courses around different programs to help employees and supervisors,” says Jacob Leon, HR Analyst at DHR. “The idea was to help employees who weren’t doing well in certain areas or give supervisors the ability to tackle issues early. It’s really about enabling employees to figure out and customize what’s best for them.”
The lessons learned from each of these departments are shared through DHR’s Learning Exchange (LearnX) Program. This innovative approach to learning brings employees from different departments together to discuss specific Udemy courses and practical applications.
“There’s a Udemy course for everyone. Even though we have over 2,000 job roles, everyone can find something that will benefit them,” says Shartzer. “And Udemy keeps adding courses. When we started, they offered 3,000 courses. Now, Udemy is up to 14,000, which means we always have something new to share.”
HR Principal Analyst, Los Angeles County
A Landmark Learning Hours Achievement
Since 2019, the County’s Udemy investment has proven its worth in numerous ways. The organization was the fastest in Udemy history to reach a million learning hours, and recently it became the first customer to reach two million.
User satisfaction is overwhelmingly positive, with 95% of enrolled users actively engaging with courses and reporting a 94% satisfaction rate. The same percentage would recommend Udemy to co-workers. And, perhaps most importantly, 74% feel more equipped in their current roles after taking courses.
As well as contributing to employee satisfaction and development, Udemy also delivers significant financial and efficiency benefits. It’s estimated that each employee gains almost 6 hours monthly through increased productivity. And the organization has saved $5,892,979 compared to the cost of individual marketplace course purchases, and $1,544,877 by using Udemy for certification preparation. The total annual benefit is over $11 million.
HR Principal Analyst, Los Angeles County
A Blueprint for Learning Excellence
The success of the Udemy Business implementation has positioned LA County as a leader in public sector workforce development, with other government entities seeking to replicate this model. The program exemplifies how strategic technology adoption, combined with comprehensive change management and continuous improvement, can transform organizational learning at unprecedented scale.
The achievement of over two million learning hours, combined with outstanding employee satisfaction and financial returns, establishes a new benchmark for public sector learning and development. Most importantly, the program has empowered over 100,000 employees to advance their careers, improve their job performance, and better serve the 10 million residents of LA County.
Going forward, DHR plans to continue expanding Udemy adoption across the organization, while the platform’s ever-growing catalogue of content will provide learning and career advancement opportunities to its employees. One key future use will be in preparing the organization to manage the changes that come with increasing use of AI in the workplace.
“If there’s change where jobs become automated, and we need to shift talent and help employees grow to be able to take on new work, then we have a go-to resource to help them with that transition,” says Leon.
HR Analyst, Los Angeles County
HR Principal Analyst, Los Angeles County
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