Regis Learning Solutions FAQs
What’s all the buzz about simulations?
For most executives, it’s about results. Simulations place workers in an environment that models the complexities and nuances of their everyday business and encourages them to collaborate and make tough choices. These environments help workers to develop critical and systems thinking skills and explore the cause-and-effect relationships between operating decisions and business outcomes—without real-life risk to the business.
This dynamic approach to learning fosters a more holistic view of the business among employees; it also significantly accelerates the learning curve—accelerating the speed at which employees are able to acquire and apply complex skill sets on the job.
What makes a Regis Learning Solutions (RLS) simulation different?
RLS’s ready-to-deploy simulations can be deployed as-is or quickly and cost-effectively tailored to meet your organization’s unique needs. These ready-to-deploy simulations are extremely powerful, but what really differentiates RLS from the competition is our customized simulations. Our customized simulations are:
- Built to model your organization. An RLS custom simulation is built from the ground up to mirror your organization’s real-world operating environment—from stakeholder inputs and economic conditions to competitive variables and beyond—and is specifically designed to address your most pressing challenges.
- Cost-effective to develop, deploy and maintain. Both our custom and ready-to-deploy simulations are built on RLS’s proprietary simulation portal technology, called SimPort™. This award-winning simulation platform greatly reduces the cost and development time required to create complex, enterprise-scale business simulations. Using the platform, we can typically build and deploy a fully customized enterprise simulation within only three to four months. SimPort™ also ensures that ongoing maintenance costs are kept to a minimum, so that the investment you make in a custom simulation today continues to yield significant benefits for your business in the years to come.
- As close to the real world as you can get. Our custom simulations are built on our propriety responsive modeling technology. This means that, just as in the real-world work environment, all of the decisions participants make within an RLS simulation are interrelated, and that a participant’s experience is directly affected by decisions made in previous rounds of the simulation. If, for example, a participant drastically cuts staffing in one round, he will face the consequences of that decision later on, which might include a drop in productivity or in customer satisfaction.
I need to reach people all over the world. Are your simulations only classroom-based?
No. One of RLS’s core differentiators is our ability to deliver highly engaging simulations in a variety of ways. Depending on the population you need to reach, our simulations can be deployed in a classroom environment, a blended environment (consisting of both classroom and online components), or 100 percent online. The choice is yours.
Does RLS only do simulations?
Online simulations and classroom simulations are what put us on the map, but they are only one aspect of our business. We also offer a number of workshops, as well as WorkTanks®, e-learning, and blended learning programs:
- Workshops. We offer more than 15 ready-to-deploy workshops covering a wide variety of business needs—including topics such as communication, HR, compliance, leadership, teamwork, and sales training, among others. These workshops can be deployed as-is or customized to meet the unique needs of your organization.
- E-learning. Our e-learning solutions range in interactivity level and can be deployed either locally or globally. We offer two types of e-learning:
- Basic: Traditional e-learning featuring simple, skill-building modules.
- Immersive: Engaging, interactive e-learning that is typically built around an experiential simulation.
- Worktanks®. A WorkTank® is an innovative learning framework used by organizations seeking to generate new solutions to business challenges while learning new skills. Learners who are immersed in a WorkTank® not only learn and acquire essential skills while working within a simulation environment, they also collaborate in teams to innovate ideas and create, test, and produce comprehensive solutions that address actual issues and business challenges confronting your company.
- Blended Learning Programs. Our blended learning programs feature a mix of classroom and online learning components that are designed in accordance with each client’s unique needs. Some blended learning programs, for example, feature a simulation that includes both classroom and online components. Others feature e-learning coupled with one or more of our ready-to-deploy or customized workshops.
What’s your design approach?
We start at the beginning—by understanding your company and working with you to determine your needs. We then employ a 5-D model to create learning programs that meet the multifaceted needs of your organization.
The 5-D Model:
- Define: Define what success will look like for this learning program.
- Design: Design a blueprint for the program.
- Determine: Determine usability and validity by reviewing prototypes.
- Develop: Develop, validate, and refine the program.
- Deploy: Deploy the program to the target audience.
Does any research back up your programs?
Yes. Our approach to adult learning is largely influenced by the research of Jay Forrester and his theories surrounding system dynamics—as well as the work of other prominent researches and authors on systems thinking, such as Peter Senge. Like Forrester and Senge, we believe that a number of circumstances and events affect every aspect of a business, and that it is imperative to incorporate these complexities and nuances into learning experiences in order to foster true behavioral change and performance gains. In our view, it is imperative for all employees to grasp a systemic view of the business if they are to maximize their contributions to its success.
Who facilitates your courses?
The choice is yours. An experienced group of RLS facilitators is readily available to facilitate simulations and workshops covering a wide range of topics. Some of our clients, however, prefer to have their own internal facilitators lead the courses and simulations we develop for them. In such instances, we typically assist our clients by training their own in-house facilitators and providing them with ongoing facilitator support. In either case, we develop complete facilitator materials to accompany the learning environment (courses or simulations) including:
- Leader Guide: Using a Know (What does the leader need to know when presenting or debriefing the learning?), Say (What does the leader need to tell participants?), Do (What does the leader need to do in order to conduct the course/simulation?) format, our leader guides simplify the process of facilitating a complex learning environment, such as a business simulation.
- Administrator Guide: These feature detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to administer RLS’s SimPort™ technology during a business simulation learning event.
- Participant Guide: Comprehensive participant workbooks help participants to maximize their learning within a course or simulation and to apply new content and skills when performing on-the-job tasks.
- Train-the-Trainer Guide: This set of materials helps your organization’s trainers learn how to most effectively lead a course or simulation.
Do you offer ongoing support?
Yes. Client satisfaction is what drives us. After a learning program is deployed, we offer ongoing hosting and technical support in the form of a staffed help desk, which has successfully supported global deployments of our learning solutions for leading Fortune 500 companies. Calls are routed through an answering service (for urgent issues) that connects each user to a live technician for immediate resolution. This service is available 24 hours a day, six days a week. We also provide an online support form for non-urgent technical issues, which provides clients with solutions within 24 hours.
Do you provide reinforcement?
Yes. We strongly believe in the importance of ongoing support and reinforcement in order to ensure that learning does not end after a given learning experience concludes. To ensure that this essential piece of the learning puzzle is in place for each of our clients, we offer a comprehensive performance support portal, ongoing coaching and measurement, and several “action learning” programs.
Do you have a U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Schedule?
We do not currently have a GSA Schedule. We have, however, submitted a GSA MOBIS schedule that has not yet been granted. We do currently hold an OPM TMA schedule.
Do you use SCORM and Section 508?
Yes. RLS believes courseware content should be sharable and reusable and that knowledge should be accessible to every learner. We also believe that technology-driven learning is for everyone, and that disabilities should not pose a barrier to obtaining knowledge, gaining skills, and increasing opportunities. That is why we are committed to both Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM) and to Section 508.
When appropriate, we apply SCORM standards and Section 508 requirements to make our offerings accessible, shareable, and interoperable among learning management systems. As a certified SCORM adopter, we are actively involved with the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Laboratory and routinely consult with leaders in SCORM technology to advance the SCORM initiative.
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