A Spherion executive discusses the company's business reasons for adopting an online training solution related to unemployment and aimed at field managers. Spherion's decision-making is explored with regard to targeting the training to certain groups of employees to match a clear business need. Other issues addressed include mandatory versus non-mandatory training and the advantages of self-directed online training for unemployment-related content versus the need for live online training for other forms of content. The steps to roll-out are discussed and the communication plan explained. Test score distributions and ideal content difficulty levels are discussed.

Other best practices adopted by Spherion include securing senior executive buy-in, tracking completion rates by office and region, soliciting responses from the target audience via surveys and adoption of clear goals. Spherion adopted a concrete metric to measure program success – reduction of the ratio of avoidable losses to total losses and improvement in initial win ratios at unemployment claims hearings. Spherion determined that a reduction of one avoidable loss for every twenty branches would result in sufficient savings to pay for the cost of the training.