McKinstry Standardizes Safety and Technical Training Nationwide With Articulate 360

El reto

Standardize and scale training

When John Livingston joined McKinstry as a training program manager, employee learning mostly consisted of slide-based decks. For live instruction, the organization relied on busy tradespeople who took time away from the field to facilitate sessions. Schedules were challenging to coordinate and content was nearly impossible to standardize.

As the company started expanding beyond the Pacific Northwest, this approach to training meant that technical knowledge that lived with the experts was at risk of getting lost or inconsistently communicated.

“As we are a construction company, safety is a primary goal of ours to make sure that all of our folks go home safe,” says Livingston. McKinstry needed a new way to deliver quality training reliably to employees across the nation so that everyone was equipped to do their jobs safely and well.

La respuesta

Consistent technical, soft skills, and onboarding training with Articulate 360

Today, Livingston’s team uses both Rise and Storyline to build the full range of compliance, safety, onboarding, and technical training—and deliver it at scale. 

In Storyline, McKinstry’s instructional design and L&D teams build complex, scenario-based training around both technical and soft skills. Courses walk dispatchers through CRM software or teach customer communication skills, like how to empathize with someone whose air conditioning unit goes out on a hot day. “Articulate Storyline has been a huge help for our folks understanding the basics of what we do and how we support our customers,” says Livingston.

Rise, meanwhile, is the go-to for crucial safety and onboarding training, allowing the team to easily and quickly build consistent courses for all staff.

For example, Livingston recently converted McKinstry’s slide-based onboarding safety training to self-paced Rise courses employees could return to again and again. “We need people to refresh that knowledge every once in a while,” says Livingston. “Being able to ensure that my coworkers can go home safe at the end of the day was really impactful for me.”

Desbloquear el potencial humano

Scalable training that meets employees where they are with crucial safety knowledge

Before Articulate 360, McKinstry’s knowledge lived with people, not in systems, making it difficult to train consistently across regions. Now, McKinstry can capture knowledge from subject matter experts once, package it into self-paced training courses, and deliver it to employees across the nation without starting from scratch with every course.

It’s also allowed for greater cohesion between departments as the company grows into new geographic markets. The courses Livingston’s team creates has helped back-office and support staff really understand what the tradespeople do out in the field and how best to support them.

Ultimately, it keeps the company grounded in their mission to create better built spaces with sustainability top-of-mind. When internal teams are equipped with the expertise they need, McKinstry’s customers can navigate complex topics like new legislation or building code requirements that advance sustainability experts—all in service of a more climate-conscious world. “Being able to develop training that gets that message across for our sales development teams or our business development team helps our customers understand what their role in that process is,” says Livingston.

On a personal note, Livingston says that Articulate 360 has helped him evolve from a military trainer and program manager into a capable instructional designer. “Articulate definitely made the transition for me—from a program manager to an instructional designer to an impactful member of McKinstry—much easier,” he says.

With Articulate 360, McKinstry transformed ad-hoc instructor-led training into a repeatable system that supports national growth and keeps employees safe.