Onboarding · Blended learning · Regulated workforce · Storyboarding · Pilot management
Organization: First American Financial Corporation (Fortune 500), 2020–2023
Role: Senior Trainer / Instructional Designer
Corporate work product is confidential. This case study describes approach and outcomes; no client artifacts are shown.
Situation
Commercial title operations is frontline production work where errors carry regulatory and financial consequences. New hires historically reached independent production only after a multi-year apprenticeship, and the operation needed people with no industry experience to become productive far faster.
Analysis
A needs analysis with operations leaders and subject matter experts mapped which competencies were judgment-heavy, which were foundational knowledge, and which were procedural steps inside the systems employees already used. That mapping drove modality selection rather than a single delivery format.
Design
- Virtual instructor-led training for judgment-heavy skills
- Asynchronous eLearning (Articulate Storyline and Rise) for foundational knowledge
- Procedural learning routed through the production systems themselves
- Storyboards written to a level of precision that a content developer could build from without the designer in the room
- QC testing and structured review cycles with SMEs
- A facilitated pilot, with learner feedback integrated into final designs
Result
Time to independent production work fell to four months against a multi-year industry norm. Manager-reported satisfaction with new-hire performance rose by more than 50 percent. Separately, I led the curriculum design workstream for a $1.5M training initiative, guiding a cross-functional team of seven through an 8-month effort that defined success criteria, governance, and transition plans — a program that continued running cohorts after my involvement ended.
