Quick facts about OMICRON: 

Challenge 

OMICRON designs and manufactures testing, diagnosis and monitoring solutions for electrical power systems. Headquartered in Austria, the company employs around 1,100 people around the world, many of whom are technical staff with highly specialist knowledge. 

The organization was looking for a new, easy-to-use learning platform that would integrate seamlessly with their recently implemented SharePoint Online intranet and provide access to all company online and classroom-based training, while also supporting OMICRON’s existing knowledge-sharing culture.  

“It was a great decision to implement Learn365. Our learners love it and are now able to take courses when and where they want. It’s also helping increase knowledge sharing around the company, partly because it’s just so easy to add courses and content.” 

Solution 

To support employee learning, OMICRON previously used a form on their intranet for training registration, but a move to a new SharePoint Online intranet required a more robust solution. 

Johannes Rinke, Information Systems Infrastructure Services at OMICRON, explains:

“We needed a new learning platform that would integrate seamlessly with SharePoint and Microsoft 365, and cover both e-learning and classroom registrations.” 

Finding the right solution was important. Johannes Rinke comments,

“It had to be easy to use and allow employees to attend courses when they wanted. Knowledge sharing is deeply rooted in our company philosophy, so we also wanted to empower employees to be able to easily create new courses without any coding.” 

The timetable for introducing the solution was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the need to increase online training. A new CRM and ERP system was also being implemented and the team wanted to leverage the new learning platform to train employees.  

To find the best solution, the team reviewed several learning management products. Learn365 stood out, particularly, as it integrated so tightly with Microsoft 365 and required very little customization.  

Once selected, the implementation was straightforward. Johannes Rinke explains,

“We got support from right across the business. Everything worked well and our trainers found it easy to create content.”  

The Learn365 team also helped OMICRON to use Power Automate to automatically send a feedback survey to participants after courses have been completed. In March 2021, Learn365 was launched to all employees.  

Results 

Today around 1,100 learners use the Learn365 platform, which has been branded as OMICRON TALENTS. They access it via the company’s SharePoint Online intranet as well as the Learn365 app on their mobile device.

After a year of going live, there are more than 400 different courses on Learn365, both online and classroom-based, the great majority of which have been created in-house. Courses often feature different types of material including Microsoft Office files such as PowerPoint decks, as well as videos posted on to Microsoft Stream.  

One of the reasons that there are such a high number of courses is Learn365’s ease of use. Johannes Rinke comments,

“It was important for all of us that would it was super-easy for all our employees to create courses, not only take them. Our content contributors really like the system. For example, perhaps an engineers created some video training for a customer which would also be useful for our staff. He or she can now just add the course and the recording.”   

The high number of courses has been very well adopted by learners. Johannes Rinke explains,

“Self-learning through Learn365 has proved very popular because you can do the course when and where you like.” 

To date, the platform has been used for a variety of different projects, including training employees on the new global ERP and CRM solution. Johannes Rinke comments,

“It was always going to be a big challenge to train all employees on the new system based on their area of responsibility, but with Learn365 we were able to offer tailored training by role, and ensure they pass that before given access to the new ERP.”  

Additional areas including technical training for engineers on OMICRON’s products, as well as training on how to use various Microsoft 365 tools. There is also an employee onboarding program where new hires can get up to speed on the company, as well as systems and safety-related training. 

Another area where Learn365 is being used is to provide health and safety training for engineers who need to be certified annually. Previously this training was classroom-based, which was both inefficient and disruptive.  Johannes Rinke explains,

“Using Learn365 for recurrent safety training has saved us so much time. Our engineers can take the course when they want so it doesn’t interrupt their work. It’s also helped with our ISO certification as we can show external auditors our progress on Learn365.” 

Because Learn365 does integrate with Microsoft 365, it makes the management of the platform much easier. Johannes Rinke explains,

“Because Learn365 is integrated with Microsoft 365 you don’t have to add new users manually. Everything is synchronised each day. We can also use Microsoft 365 groups and elements such as multi-factor authentication.”  The team also use Power BI to create custom dashboards to track learning progress, for example on the new ERP system.   

As Learn365 is a SaaS solution it has also proved very easy to manage. Johannes Rinke explains,

“Updates are also rolled out automatically and the solution is very stable. We’ve had no technical issues. I really haven’t had to do much work with the solution since we went live!”  

Future  

Going forwards, the team see Learn365 and the quality of the content continuing to improve. Johannes Rinke comments,

“The quality of the training material added by people throughout the company just keeps getting better and better. We’ve established a valuable base of knowledge that helps onboard new employees and for everyone to learn.”   

 
The team are also planning to create new learning material covering the collaborative tools that have been launched throughout OMICRON. Johannes Rinke explains,

“We want to have training for all of our collaborative tools and increase the awareness about which tool to use for which scenario in order to increase adoption.” 

The team also want to continue to expand use of the mobile app, especially as it can help engineers on the go make the best use of their time. Johannes Rinke adds,

“Some people are using the mobile app, for example when they are travelling to a customer. It’s very convenient for them to complete a course on the way.” 

Reflecting on their overall success of Learn365, Johannes Rinke comments,

“The implementation of the system has been really successful. It’s very popular and we get a lot of positive feedback. We believe that success is only going to continue.” 

About 

OMICRON designs and manufactures innovative testing, diagnosis and monitoring solutions for electrical power systems. Headquartered in Austria, the company operates from 25 global locations and serves customers in 171 countries. It has over 1,100 employees.