OpenSesame: Unlocking Learning at Manson

Senior Vice President and General Counsel Laurie Pinard needed to get supervisors, directors and managers at Manson trained on the importance of antitrust issues related to our business operations. She required a course that would cover all the essential information in a compelling way to meet regulatory requirements. Laurie turned to the Manson Learning Network (“MLN”) and an extensive virtual warehouse of online training called OpenSesame. Together they found the perfect course that delivered essential information to educate Manson staff on this important legal subject.

This is just one of many ways OpenSesame is promoting learning and development within our company. “OpenSesame courses are a convenient resource for awareness level learning, but when the courses are tied to the work we do they can achieve even deeper learning and improve job performance,” observes Thomas Barrett, Manson’s Director for Learning & Development. OpenSesame is a versatile learning tool, read on for ideas of how it can help you too.

What Exactly Is OpenSesame?

The OpenSesame landing page available on Manson's SharePoint site for employees.

OpenSesame is an extensive catalog of online self-paced courses that are available to all Manson network users. OpenSesame launched in 2011 to provide a virtual marketplace where publishers of online courses could offer their content to companies like Manson. OpenSesame hosts and maintains thousands of courses in this virtual warehouse sourced from hundreds of publishers including media organization Technology, Entertainment, and Design (“TED”); Health and Safety Institute (“HSI"); and Harvard Business Review. These courses cover a wide variety of categories such as Safety, Leadership, Maritime, Engineering, Microsoft applications, and Oil and Gas, among others.

In addition to supporting Manson’s Contracts and Insurance Department, OpenSesame has supplied courses that have met important training needs at Manson in EHS, Human Resources (“HR”), Compass Leadership Program, and Microsoft applications. OpenSesame’s extensive catalog of online self-paced courses are available to all Manson network users.

Accessing OpenSesame

The great news is that there are courses available for just about any topic you would like to learn about. With such a vast selection, the challenge is deciding which courses to prioritize to include in the Manson Online Learning Library (“MOLLy”), our cloud-based platform for learning content. To make the most of this extensive course library, the MLN will curate and upload up to 100 courses at a time to MOLLy so they are easily accessible to everyone at Manson. The courses will rotate each quarter to provide the most robust selection available to Manson employees, which can be viewed on MLN’s SharePoint site.

The Manson Online Learning Library ("MOLLy").

Early Adopters: OpenSesame Uses at Manson

The heaviest use of OpenSesame at Manson is with the EHS group. EHS sources a wide variety of courses to ensure we are keeping our people safe.

“To name a few of the most recent examples: Chainsaw safety, Wildfire Smoke safety (a recent Washington and CalOSHA regulatory requirement), California Workplace Violence Prevention training (as part of a CalOSHA mandate) & Investigation and Root Cause Analysis,” explains Douglas Boehm, EHS Training Manager.

Manson’s HR Department is also using OpenSesame in a variety of ways. Our company is required under both state and federal regulations to provide training for selected employees on topics such as preventing workplace harassment and complying with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”).

HR Director Kristin Troxel has also leveraged OpenSesame courses to foster soft skill development for Manson staff.

“HR needed ready resources on topics related to leadership coaching and manager development,” Kristin says. “I found the OpenSesame platform easy to use and easy to preview the courses.”

OpenSesame has also played a small but valuable role for Manson’s Compass Leadership Program. Some short OpenSesame courses are used to introduce leadership communication topics. Compass participants delve into the course content via online forums and apply the acquired knowledge during live cohort sessions by engaging with their cohort peers. OpenSesame courses are most effective when paired with real-world applications and supported by a structured learning framework.

Selected courses offered on OpenSesame.

Manson’s Operations group reached out with some training needs related to problem-solving and fine-tuning their Microsoft Excel skills. “The setup of OpenSesame is very user friendly, I really liked the ability to search through the catalog via using various filters and save the courses to a list. It felt just like adding some items in my shopping cart,” says Project Engineer Mohammad Kanaan.

MLN is currently developing learning pathways for the new Engineer Career Planning & Development program and West Coast Business Operations. These learning pathways are mostly comprised of custom Manson learning experiences, but OpenSesame also supplies courses for both technical and soft skill development.

Harnessing the Power of OpenSesame

OpenSesame courses are housed in MOLLy, which is accessible from the MLN SharePoint page. Every quarter, the MLN will select and add 100 new courses to the library based on user requests, ensuring a regularly updated source of learning. All Manson employees with a network account (Manson email address) can simply log into MOLLy and take the courses. Upon completion, employee’s training records will be updated in My T-REX. If there is a certain topic you’d like to explore but can’t find in MOLLy, just drop a note to MLN@mansonconstruction.com and the team will help make it available to you. It’s always a good practice to first consult your supervisor about pursuing your learning interests.

Every supervisor at Manson is challenged each year with creating development plans for the people on their team. OpenSesame is an excellent resource to supplement these development plans.

To learn more about OpenSesame and how you and your team can tap into this powerful resource, visit the MLN OpenSesame SharePoint page for a listing of courses and steps for accessing them.