With a red hot property market, and a record number of real estate sales people joining the industry, being able to provide consistent training for all of Property Brokers staff across the country was a constant challenge and something Lisa Drysdale, their Training Manager, was keen to sort out.

“With over 800 staff across 80 branches it is not feasible to cart people all around the country to run face to face workshops, and using a number of trainers resulted in different training experiences which wasn’t what we wanted.”

While the need to move things online was obvious, initially Property Brokers started their online training journey with another platform, but they soon found it wasn’t interactive and was hard to use.

“We were looking for something that focussed on user engagement but that would also give us the data we needed to see how staff were tracking with their study - as with the other system we had no visibility over who had completed their training.”

Lisa, Property Broker’s Training Manager, had used iQualify as a learner before, so knew it fitted the bill from a learner's perspective.

“It struck me that it was a simple system and was easy to use - I thought surely we could tap into this, so we did.”

Real results

Using assessment tools and analytics to verify knowledge
Given the vast number of regulations and legal obligations within the real estate industry, accuracy and compliance were key factors for Lisa when choosing iQualify.

“Compliance was crucial for us and drove our search for a better LMS. While I knew the learner experience was great, I needed to know that it would work for the business as well.”

And it did.

Within days of signing up, Property Brokers created their first course for their sales people on anti-money laundering legislation. In addition to creating their own course materials they also embedded content and legislation from third party sites ensuring that all information was always up-to-date and accurate.

Property Brokers also made good use of the tasks and quizzes and found they were a great way to check that staff had actually learned what they needed to know, and not just skimmed over the content.

To manage certification requirements, Property Brokers decided to offer monthly induction classes to get all new staff up-skilled as soon as they arrived, and to allow for recertification at the right time. By using badges they are able to keep track of all certification and ensure staff get their refresher training when needed.

“Badges are so good. They give our people something to look forward to and provide a sense of success. And the flexibility to auto award or manually award is great for us, it gives us control of how to award achievement.”

One of the best features for Lisa is the ability to assign coaches to all of their classes, to let regional managers manage and give feedback to their own staff.

“It’s great to be able to give our regional managers ownership of their own teams while being able to retain oversight of all the training as well.”

Sold on iQualify

Consistent branding with a white-labelled learning platform
Another key feature of iQualify that appealed to Property Brokers was that it was white-labelled - allowing them to make it look and feel like their organisation, and by configuring iQualify with single sign-on, their staff can access their training directly from their Intranet.

“We don’t even call it iQualify, it’s the Property Brokers Learning Centre which is available in one click from our homepage.”

When asked how moving their training online has benefited Property Brokers, Lisa said

“it means it can actually happen. We’ve rolled out training to our entire company and are confident they’ve done what is required of them to be in this industry. It’s just fantastic.“

And how have learners found the move to online study?

“We have a diverse group of learners from the tech savvy to those less so… But iQualify just works. Staff haven’t any issues sorting it out. That’s a big thing for us. It makes it easy not having to sort out technical problems.”

Architecturally designed

Learning and integration support
For Lisa one of the key benefits of iQualify, aside from the platform itself, was the support she received.

“Getting some learning design support after creating our first course was so valuable. I loved how they broke the advice down into ‘quick wins’ and more ‘in depth recommendations’. It was particularly helpful getting it so early on in our iQualify journey so we could break bad habits and create new and improved ways of doing things.”

Key to success

Creating and improving content to engage and interact with learners
And what’s next for Property Brokers? They’ve had such success with their sales people training that they’re moving all their training for their Customer Service and Property Management teams into iQualify as well.

They are also expanding the training they offer for their Sales team with the creation of modular courses focussing on individual skills - for example ‘how to run an auction’. These will be available for all staff to enrol in and complete at any time, giving staff the opportunity to choose the skills they need and further themselves when it suits them.

When we asked Lisa if she had any advice to those looking to move their training online, she had this to say.

“While iQualify makes it easy, it still takes time. Putting in the time to build our courses properly, and make sure they’re engaging and meet the learning outcomes we wanted from our staff was well worth it. While it felt like it took ages to start, it definitely saved us time down the track, and more importantly allowed for a consistent approach and high quality training experience for our staff.”

If you'd like to see how iQualify and online learning can help your business succeed, sign up for a free trial and try it out for yourself.