Choice Hotels is one of the largest hospitality franchising companies in the world, with nearly 6,800 hotels across 14 brands in more than 40 countries and territories. They have long believed in the power of education at all levels of the organization, for all its employees and its franchisees.
Unlike many businesses that operate with a “top-down” training approach, Choice Hotels believes that all employees should be able to access the critical learning necessary to meet their mission. In addition, learning options should be provided in order to encourage everyone to become leaders and further their careers.
In 2002, Choice partnered with TraCorp and began using its customized learning management system (LMS) for its franchise organizations. The goal was to help every employee succeed to the best of their ability.
TraCorp and Choice learning professionals continually change the learning management system (LMS) to meet Choice Hotel learners' exact needs and learning styles at all levels.
TraCorp’s consultative team of engineers, programmers, and designers went to work to enhance its platform for Choice Hotel to meet its specific organizational and learner goals. The enhanced learning management system and learner experience is known as ‘Choice University.’
“Our training tools, including our award-winning Choice University, allow us to offer learning opportunities at every level of the enterprise, serving our associates and franchisees and their staff. Not only are we able to customize our curriculum for each user based on their responsibilities and the brand or division they work in, but our programs are also available across multiple platforms, making learning accessible, efficient and easy,” Timothy Tobin, Vice President, Franchise Onboarding and Learning, Choice Hotels stated in a press release from Choice Hotels.
Choice University offers training, courses, and information about every aspect of Choice Hotels’ business, including finance, operations, leadership, and development with constant feedback and personalization, to over 70,000 learners annually, translated into five languages. The organization’s franchising model, geographic dispersion, the volume of learners, and shifting workforce present unique challenges that Choice Hotels and TraCorp have met together through their long-standing, strong partnership.
“We choose to not conduct RFPs on any other learning management system at this. Their pricing model – to not charge by user – nobody can compete with, it’s a huge differentiator for them,” shared Chris Longstreet, Director of Learning Experiences with Choice Hotels.
The impact of TraCorp’s LMS benefits hundreds of thousands of Choice Hotels learners worldwide, and it does not go unnoticed.
Since 2003, TraCorp has won the gold, silver, and bronze Brandon Hall Awards for custom content and its LMS platform.
In addition, the strong partnership between TraCorp and Choice Hotels led to Choice University winning the 2019 Learning 100 Award for Performance, an ADT BEST Award, and 2020 Learning 100 Award.
Based on Choice Hotels’ in-depth assessment results, TraCorp provided an LMS for them that emphasized action-oriented, self-paced, and interactive elements that are constantly kept up-to-date.
Follow-up studies with Choice Hotels found that the total number of content completions for the company’s learners increased by half a million in just the last 12 months. In addition, hotels with a high level of learning resource engagement average 15% higher Likeliness to Recommend (LTR), 13% higher customer service scores, and 13.7% higher revenue per unit.
The team at TraCorp is immensely proud of the effort and drive put into creating this learning management system and the resulting learner experience. TraCorp’s LMS platforms are seamlessly designed with personalized options that work best for learners and the organization. These options include blended learning content, tracking systems, video and TV-style platforms, constant refresher sessions, positive reinforcement campaigns to encourage learners to continue engaging with the program, and more.
TraCorp’s low monthly prices make it affordable for companies to decide exactly which customization points will work best for them.
The team at TraCorp begins building a strong partnership with organizations like Choice Hotels right from the start, even before the development process begins. We take the time to truly understand each customer’s needs through an in-depth, comprehensive assessment. In this initial assessment, we discover everything we can about each customer's challenge and opportunity areas and then apply our findings through customizations that create effective and engaging learning experiences.
Choice has been a collaborative member of the TraCorp LMS community for sixteen consecutive years. Choice requests changes that are vetted and quoted by TraCorp’s customer and engineering teams. Requests are implemented for the benefit of all platform users. This model keeps subscription costs low by ensuring that all engineering is paid for and not speculative. Not only does this process help Choice achieve success in their businesses, but it also helps their learners at any level—and anywhere—to learn valuable skills.
https://media.choicehotels.com/awards-and-recognition