Case highlights
Scenario
Sanlam Personal Finance provides a wide range of individual life insurance and personal financial services and solutions, including estate planning and trusts, home loans, personal loans, linked products, money transfer and financial services in South Africa, Namibia and the UK.
The company is committed to providing cost-effective learning solutions that promote compliance and improve performance.
Online assessments have enabled us to administer more quizzes, tests and surveys while saving time and money,’ remarks Julius. ‘People are able to stay on the job more, because they can use e-learning resources and take assessments at the times most convenient for them.
Documenting compliance
As a Financial Services company, Sanlam is continuously challenged to demonstrate its compliance with regulatory requirements by submitting detailed reports to the government to prove compliance and in many instances the competence of employees.
Sanlam had been running standalone assessments via Questionmark for 10 years when it was decided to integrate Questionmark with the SAP Human Resources and Learning Management System. This combination would make it easier to document compliance-related activities.
The integration has enabled Sanlam’s training team to record training interventions against the qualifications and learning profiles of learners and at the same time allow the team to give learners feedback within Questionmark at a detailed topic level. Not only does the integration allows access to Questionmark’s full range reporting features, it also gives facilitators and trainers access to the more comprehensive question types.
Solution
Each of Sanlam’s seven business units has one or two assessment authors responsible for the development of assessment in their respective units. Authors, based in offices throughout South Africa, use a shared repository, a single server and a SQL database.
Some create questions and assessments using Questionmark Windows Authoring while other use Word documents that are converted to ASCII files for importing into Questionmark. Each high-stakes assessment starts with a Declaration of Authenticity.
Other standards ensure that assessments throughout the company adhere to certain basic practices.
Org structure level reports generated on SAP can determine specifically who completed the assessments; business unit heads can be informed of those individuals who have not completed the assessment as well as those deemed competent or not yet competent.
Blended delivery meets widespread needs
At any one time, about 4,000 people in Kenya, Botswana, South Africa and Namibia are taking surveys, quizzes or tests. On average 14,000 assessments are taken per month.
A robust server handles these assessments smoothly and efficiently. The company has used a wide variety of delivery platforms, from an intranet to CDs for those training facilities without a network.
Results
In addition to identifying knowledge gaps for employees and trainers, Questionmark reports help the training team convey the significance of employee survey results to business units. Frequent staff surveys help business units understand employee attitudes, opinions and needs.
One of the benefits of integrating Questionmark with SAP HR is the ability to access the company’s Organizational Structure.
Org structure level reports generated on SAP can determine specifically who completed the assessments; business unit heads can be informed of those individuals who have not completed the assessment as well as those deemed competent or not yet competent.
Questionmark’s Question Statistics Report reveals which questions received the most incorrect answers in bi-monthly product knowledge tests. This prompts trainers to include the most frequently missed questions on the next test.
The Coaching Report helps trainers provide important feedback to employees about how best to focus their learning.
Improved learning outcomes and documentation
With Questionmark’s help, Sanlam has made a complete transition away from paper-based assessments. SAP has made possible the increased use of e-learning. The integration of the two solutions has helped the company reduce training costs while improving its results and how they are reported.
‘It’s been proven that during training the process, learning is facilitated more effectively when an employee who completes an assessment receives immediate feedback. We aim to focus more on formative assessments whereby we consistently assess employees’ knowledge levels. This is contrary to having employees take only summative assessments with longer time intervals between tests. Assessments therefore form part of the employees’ daily tasks to ensure quality of productivity and excellence in learning.’
Reporting support
Although participants receive automatic online feedback for Questionmark open, diagnostic and workbook tests, the results of certification exams are conveyed by email and/ or letter. Successful candidates receive a recognized Sage Certificate that contains the Sage brand and accreditation stamp.
On the rare occasion when a participant questions the test results, the team can pull detailed results using Questionmark’s reporting tools to track the participant’s performance in each topic area.
Online assessments have enabled us to administer more quizzes, tests and surveys while saving time and money,’ remarks Julius. ‘People are able to stay on the job more, because they can use e-learning resources and take assessments at the times most convenient for them.
