Duravant and Go1: Expanding learning opportunities together

The parent company of 15 manufacturing brands across the globe, Duravant designs, creates, and maintains highly engineered processing equipment. They develop innovative solutions and build long-term, productive relationships with their customers. 

Prior to using Go1, Duravant had no unified L&D program. Each of their operating companies (OCs) was left to address learning individually, either onsite or manually, with no way to track course progress and completions.  

With feedback flooding in from employees asking for training, it was clear to Jess Guidici, Director of Talent Management at Duravant, that they needed a centralized learning system capable of providing insights and data on the entire company’s learning progress. 

Backed by Duravant’s leadership, who highly value the benefits of ongoing education, Jess set out to thoroughly evaluate a wide array of content providers in search of the best fit for the business. Now that she’s selected Go1 as Duravant’s vendor of choice, Jess is excitedly watching as employee engagement in the learning program continues to grow. 

Key takeaways: 

• Duravant needed to create one unified learning program for their 15 disparate operating companies and meet the needs of a diverse workforce, from senior-level leaders to frontline service technicians. 
• Since partnering with Go1, Duravant has seen 4,900 courses completed across topics like business, DE&I, digital skills, and compliance. 
• Duravant is enthusiastic about their decision to use Go1, not just for the depth and breadth of content offered, but also because of the strong partnership they’ve formed together. 

Uniting disparate training programs 

When Jess first started working at Duravant three years ago, L&D was an assortment of solutions handled independently by each separate operating company. 

"That obviously presents a lot of challenges, even just from a safety and compliance standpoint, when you can’t centrally track and report and monitor those things,” Jess said.  

Additionally, employees were asking for training and development opportunities, and Duravant didn’t have a centralized learning system that they could direct employees to. 

“It was a big goal to have an LMS built and content on demand for employees,” Jess said. “They wanted more training, and we wanted to be able to provide it to them.” 

A learning solution for every need 

Duravant’s workforce is diverse, with roles ranging “from senior-level leaders to professionals who sit on computers all day to trade people who are out on the production floor, not accessing computers, and then service technicians who travel 90% of the time and are never at a computer,” Jess said. 

With such a wide range of roles to consider, Jess knew they’d need a solution with many different types of content, so in her search for a provider, she prioritized micro-learning and a mix of fun and formal content. It was also important to her that their new content could easily integrate with their existing human resources information system (HRIS). 

“We didn’t want to bring in another platform because the more platforms you add, the less likely people are going to go to all of them,” Jess said. “So I wanted something that could meet them where they already were.” 

A supportive presence 

Jess worked with the company’s CHRO, as well as a group of HR leaders, to research and evaluate content providers across the industry. “I probably [researched] every content provider out there!” Jess laughed. 

Jess and her team narrowed their search down to 10–15 providers who they booked demos with. Ultimately, Go1 was the standout candidate. 

“That variety of content was big,” Jess recounted. “The amount of content available, the types, just everything that the content provided really met those challenges.” 

It wasn’t just the content that solidified Jess’ decision, though—it was the support she received throughout the decision process and the partnership she could already see forming. 

“You could tell through the demo and the selection process that it was going to be very hands-on,” Jess said. “The ability to have a content aggregator and somebody that I could reach out to and help identify content was big. You could just tell that the type of people that worked there were people that we wanted to work with.” 

Ready to launch 

Once Jess and her team chose Go1, getting buy-in from leadership was simple. 

“The buying piece was easier than other projects I’ve been a part of because there really was a sense of, ‘This is what we need to do to move the organization forward,’” Jess said. “The case was pretty clear. We needed to train our employees. This was the solution to do it. And it fits within our budget.” 

Next, Jess prepared to launch Duravant’s Learning Academy, which included their online library of Go1 content. In the months leading up to the launch, they set up auto-enroll for new hires and made a plan for existing employees to enroll. They also created a digital brochure to provide employees with information about the program. 

Promotion of the Learning Academy didn’t stop there. A few weeks after the launch, Jess and her team released a series of videos sharing more about the program. Now, they continue to spotlight new courses that are added each month. 

“We just try to be really consistent with new content and communication to keep the attention and focus on it,” Jess said. 

An expertly curated library 

Jess has integrated nearly 300 Go1 courses into Duravant’s HRIS, and the process has been both simple and supportive. 

“I think the biggest surprise was how easy it was to pull content,” Jess said. “I thought the course creation process was going to be a lot harder than it is. The fact that it's just a quick download and it's in my email in two seconds is not what I was expecting at all.” 

Still, if Jess does find herself unsure of what content might be the best fit for a certain need, she knows she can still contact her Customer Support Manager, Tyler, for help. 

“If I'm just struggling or if it's kind of a niche thing, I'll email Tyler and not even spend the time trying to figure it out,” Jess said. "Within 24 hours he's emailing me back exactly what I need.” 

It's all in the data 

Go1 has enabled Duravant to easily deliver content to various teams—and Go1’s centralized reporting means they can measure the impact. 

“We now have training requests delivered from our team in order to provide access to trainings that people are asking for quickly and easily,” said Jess. "Centralized reporting was a huge impact to our team and allows us to see the progress individuals are making to expand their skill sets.” 

Duravant’s partnership with Go1 has been a major success, with engagement numbers rising each month. Since the launch of Duravant’s Learning Academy, Jess has been pulling usage data every month—and she's excited about the numbers she’s seeing. 

"We’ve had 4,900 courses completed, which is incredible,” Jess said. “Safety is our biggest, with over 2,000, but we also had 824 DE&I courses completed. We had over 250 leadership courses completed, which is awesome. We had 100 Microsoft Office courses completed. To see this level of engagement is so cool.” 

By creating learning paths in topics like safety, DE&I, and leadership, Duravant is creating a safer work environment and empowering a new wave of leaders who put diversity at the forefront of their teams. Plus, they’re providing employees with courses that expand their skill sets and carve a career path for them at Duravant and beyond. 

Taking L&D to the next level 

Jess said that anyone considering Go1 should go for it—and for many good reasons. 

“I would strongly encourage it,” Jess said. “There's no way that the content won't check the box or solve the challenge. You're getting everything you need with content, but you're getting so much more because you get such strong partnerships.” 

For Jess, her partnership with Go1 is what makes it all worthwhile. 

“You get people who make an effort to understand your business, your unique challenges,” she said. “It doesn't feel like anybody there has the mentality that all their customers are the same. And I think that's what's made us so successful is we've been able to build this library of great content and development for our employees, but we've only been able to do that through that guidance in those partnerships.”