How First Advantage improved efficiency and stakeholder satisfaction with SessionLab

As a global organization, First Advantage serves customers in over 200 countries and territories with a staff of about 10,000 employees in 19 countries. As such, First Advantage’s Learning and Development team has a large number of training requirements they need to fulfill.

In this customer story, Deborah Masak, Head of Global Talent Development  & Inclusion, and Lavanya Chouhan, Manager, Architect of Learning Design, share how First Advantage uses SessionLab to drive results and enhance service delivery.

Creating an organized, efficient training program 

The Learning & Development team at First Advantage primarily uses SessionLab when creating internal training programs. They cover a diverse range of sessions and workshops that focus on leadership development, technical skills, and professional training.

Tailored for HR professionals, hiring managers, team leaders, and front-line agents, these workshops aim to deepen participants’ understanding of background checks across various industry verticals.

Deborah says that these training programs are a vital part of equipping their team with the skills necessary to navigate the current world of work and to foster “a safer, more compliant workplace that supports organizational success.”

Before using SessionLab, First Advantage faced challenges with collaboration, efficiency and a lack of a structured process. Lavanya commented that:

“Before adopting SessionLab, our team relied on various tools, including spreadsheets and basic document editors, to plan workshops. However, these methods often led to confusion, lack of collaboration, and inefficiencies.”

As a result of that inefficiency, Deborah and the team at First Advantage recognized that they needed something different. After trying SessionLab, “it became clear that a centralized solution like SessionLab would benefit not just individual users but the entire organization.”

Now, SessionLab helps First Advantage improve efficiency and collaboration on both a micro and macro level.

For individual trainers and workshop design teams, Lavanya says “one of the main challenges we face is ensuring that all team members are aligned on the workshop agenda and objectives. With multiple contributors, it can be difficult to keep track of changes and maintain clarity. SessionLab addresses this challenge by allowing us to collaborate in real-time, making it easy to update agendas and share them with the team.”

As an organization, SessionLab has allowed First Advantage to create a “more cohesive and structured approach to workshop planning.”

By working together in a single, centralized platform, it’s easy for the L&D team to follow best practices, stay organized and streamline the planning process, even when working across teams. 

 “Using SessionLab has significantly improved our workshop planning efficiency.”

Flexible, powerful agenda design

Every training program and workshop begins with an agenda. At First Advantage, agenda design is an integral step the team takes seriously. Lavanya says:

“We use SessionLab primarily for planning and designing our workshops. On a day-to-day basis, we create detailed agendas that outline the structure, content, and objectives of each session.

Our typical workflow involves collaborating with team members to draft the agenda, rearranging days and topics as needed, and utilizing the platform’s features to ensure clarity and engagement.”

Moving away from spreadsheets and docs meant needing a robust yet intuitive solution that enabled facilitators and trainers to do their best work.

SessionLab’s easy-to-use agenda planner helps every team member design and co-create sessions easily. According to Lavanya:

“The key benefits of using SessionLab include enhanced usability, improved collaboration, and greater flexibility in workshop design.”

For Lavanya, the visual elements of planning a session in SessionLab are a key part of what  helps the team get things done. With colour-coding and an interface purpose-built for creating agendas, the L&D team can easily visualize the learning flow and make changes to their training programs instantly. 

“SessionLab allows us to easily rearrange agenda items and visualize the flow of the session, which was not possible with our previous tools.” 

Not only has this helped First Advantage streamline the process of a single sessign design, but it’s helped their team save time and focus on what’s important: delivering exceptional participant experiences. Lavanya comments that:

“We have noticed a reduction in the time spent on designing agendas, allowing us to focus more on content quality and participant engagement. Stakeholder satisfaction has increased, as evidenced by positive feedback from workshop participants regarding the clarity and organization of our sessions”

The end result of all your agenda planning is a workshop that you share with participants. By removing the friction of other tools and helping the team stay aligned during the planning process, First Advantage has been able to design more polished and effective workshops. 

SessionLab has helped the team run their sessions more efficiently too – saving time and ensuring participants are more engaged throughout. Lavanya says that:

“With SessionLab, we have been able to time all sessions and meetings more effectively, which has eliminated approximately 25% of wasted time.”

When it comes to getting folks on the same page or getting buy-in, SessionLab helps by providing beautiful printouts and easy options for sharing a customizable agenda with stakeholders and participants. “The ability to generate QR codes for agendas has streamlined sharing with participants.”

Conclusion

Delivering training for a global organization with 10,000 employees is no small feat. First Advantage needed a solution that helped them stay organized and deliver high-quality sessions at scale.

Using SessionLab has enabled Deborah and her team to centralize their workshop and training design process, creating alignment and structure instead of confusion. The employees taking that training have seen the benefit too – with an increase in positive feedback from participants and less wasted time in meetings and training sessions. Deborah comments:

“Using SessionLab has made it a worthy investment for our organization, driving better results and enhancing our service delivery.”