U.S. Bancorp Taps E-Learning System

U.S. Bancorp has licensed a learning-management system (LMS) from Pathlore, a Columbus,Ohio-based software company, to deliver, track, and report on corporate training for 15,000 employees. Pathlore's software forms the infrastructure on which the bank's employee development planning will be built.

According to IDC, long-term success with e-learning comes when a company aligns its employees' training and development with corporate objectives.

"U.S. Bancorp sees that employees must share and process new knowledge if the organization wants them to contribute to its bottom line," according to Michael Brennan, program manager at IDC. "Tools and services like Pathlore's LMS facilitate the input and distribution of know-how that can improve an organization's customer service."

To make that exchange of know-how happen, workers will launch Pathlore's LMS from a desktop computer. Using the LMS, employees have a way to create and view education plans with their managers. The system also integrate with the bank's human resource software. And that, for example, lets U.S. Bancorp include training records in employee reviews. Employees can use the LMS to access online courses, too.

With Pathlore's LMS in place, bank employees can also choose training that will help them unlock the bank's best practices. At an online student learning center, employees can decide which courses to take and when to take them. "Pathlore's LMS is like an air-traffic control system for organizational readiness," said Mary Morand, senior vice president and director of performance improvement & training at $180 billion U.S. Bancorp.

"Pathlore gives U.S. Bancorp the means to automate course selection and registration," said Steve Thomas, chief executive officer of Pathlore. "At a strategic level, our LMS links the bank's objectives to each employee's career goals, which will help to reduce employee turnover and boost on-the-job performance."

Pathlore's LMS is built on an n-tier architecture, which allows Web-based delivery of courses. And the system's database-server tier leverages standard relational database management technology such as Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. Pathlore recently updated its product to a .NET architecture.