UES (Universal Engineering Sciences)

From Safety Training to Employee Success: How UES Leverages Schoox

UES, formerly known as Universal Engineering Sciences, provides engineering solutions throughout the United States, including geotechnical engineering, construction materials testing, building code compliance inspections, and more. With 3,500 employees currently and counting, UES is often recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies within its industry. 

Much of the rapid growth at UES happens through mergers and acquisitions, which presents a unique challenge to its corporate learning and development (L&D) team. Many of these acquired firms are small and have never used a modern learning management system (LMS) as part of their operations. 

Each time a new company is added to the UES family, Director of Training and Development Beth Scheitzach and her team essentially function as change management facilitators, to help individual locations deliver and complete corporate training programs via Schoox. Beth and her colleagues encourage each part of the business to take advantage of the many learning and development resources available within Schoox. 

Before Schoox, the L&D team at UES partnered with an external safety training vendor to administer training. They created spreadsheets to manually track learner completions. “It was very primitive and disjointed,” said Melissa Dandridge, Corporate Training Specialist for UES. As the company grew, the L&D team recognized the need for a centralized way to track and manage training throughout the organization. 

UES selected Schoox as its LMS vendor partner because of its ability to simplify and automate safety training and compliance management and enable blended learning. They also valued Schoox’s powerful yet intuitive mobile app, included at no additional cost.

Strategic safety and compliance training.

The biggest drivers of learning and development at UES are safety and compliance training. And since each region operates differently, training needs can vary significantly from one part of the business to the next. 

“Soil in Texas, for example, is vastly different from soil in Nevada. When preparing training content, we need to ensure we’re developing and sourcing materials that address the unique learning requirements of each region and group,” shared Beth. “We want all technicians, drillers, and lab professionals to be aware of workplace safety protocols and know when to stop work if a situation seems dangerous.” 

As regulations tend to vary by state, it was critical to implement an LMS powerful enough to track all those details automatically and manage learning for the different regions and groups all through one platform. 

Certifications are another vital element of safety and compliance training at UES. From field technicians to materials handlers and more, individuals must be certified to perform specific job functions at all levels of the organization. With Schoox, the L&D team offers official certification programs for various roles and state-specific requirements to help people get trained and prepared for their jobs as quickly as possible. 

Schoox simplifies safety and compliance training by automating course assignments for required certifications and recertifications, tracking employee progress, and offering custom report templates with all the information stakeholders need to ensure the company is maintaining compliance with every local, state, and federal mandate. 

Mobile capabilities to enable field training. 

The nature of work at UES is highly specialized, technical, and hands-on—which means most people don’t work at a desk but out in the field or at a physical job site. Mobile capabilities were a prime consideration for UES when selecting an LMS. 

Since Schoox includes its mobile app at no additional cost, it made a natural fit for UES. Today, about two-thirds of the company’s employees primarily access Schoox through the native iOS or Android app, empowering them to consult training materials whenever needed, especially while on the job. Now a field technician can easily pull up reference materials on how to operate machinery or handle certain chemicals as the tasks present themselves within the flow of work. Training is even easier to access via the QR codes the UES L&D team creates for employees to scan to log into Schoox and get started immediately. 

The Schoox mobile learning app gives employees access to everything they need to know on devices they already have and know how to use. It also provides the corporate L&D team with valuable visibility into training progress, program effectiveness, and performance metrics through both mobile and desktop applications. 

Blended learning to cover all bases. 

Before Schoox, it was nearly impossible to ensure UES employees received adequate training, especially as so much of it happens out on the field. 

“How do you safely put on a harness? What is fall protection? Many of these things cannot be taught online—we need to demonstrate them,” shared Beth. “What makes Schoox great is the ability to create a blended learning package with online training materials, plus physical demonstrations and evaluations conducted locally by certified operators.”

The corporate L&D team works with an HR Business Partner and others to develop tailored training resources that address each location’s unique needs. They have a team ready to go onsite to film and produce customized training content for different groups of learners. The video content is paired with physical demonstrations and in-person evaluations for a holistic and effective learning experience. 

UES also leverages professional turnkey content from MasteryTCN, a trusted and approved content provider in the Schoox Course Marketplace, on a wide range of topics such as workplace safety training, talent development, and more. 

“Through MasteryTCN, we have A to Z access to courses for the entire employee lifecycle,” shared Beth. Between their proprietary resources, on-the-job training, and third-party content,  UES offers each location comprehensive and targeted learning opportunities for professionals at all levels of the organization—all accessible via Schoox. 

Career paths lead to development and retention.

One of the most rewarding ways UES utilizes Schoox to offer employees career paths toward job progression. Its workforce is diverse, and employee education levels vary greatly. Many team members, especially those working in the field, often only have a high school diploma and are especially eager to participate in continuous learning through their jobs. 

Learning programs offered by UES give employees the opportunity to work their way to more gainful employment, often doubling their salaries over the course of a few years—pun intended! As soon as employees begin their journey with UES, they can get started with professional development that helps them acquire the skills and certifications they need to move up to higher-paying positions as quickly as possible. 

Looking Ahead 

As UES continues to scale, the corporate L&D team looks forward to utilizing the business impact features included in Schoox. As they gather more data and analytics,  they will connect training activity to the metrics that matter to their business to see exactly how learning is impacting things like risk management, talent retention, and operations.