LA Financial Credit Union

L.A. Financial Credit Union began in the late 1930s with just a few hundred dollars that were kept in the bottom desk drawer in a corner of the Los Angeles County Probation Department. Since these humble beginnings, the credit union has blossomed into a full service credit union with over $300M in assets that serves more than 35,000 members. As part of their commitment to providing their members with the best possible member service, L.A. Financial has long placed a strong emphasis on keeping their employees well trained. That is why they have chosen to invest in a Learning Management System that easily creates, stores, manages, delivers, and tracks all training and training feedback from industry leader TFactor.

Janice Jones, Director of Training at L.A. Financial Credit Union, has over a decade of hands-on experience with credit union marketing and employee training. She recalls that “we had an older training system in-house that was becoming dated, so we started looking for a new system in late 2006.” After a few months of due diligence, Jones settled on TFactor’s KnowledgePortal360 solution which is a powerful Software as a Service (SaaS) system. Jones explains that “we received a demonstration of their learning system over the Internet and in-person, and we were convinced that it was the right system for our needs.” Plus she also talked with other credit unions who had converted to KnowledgePortal360 and was pleased to discover that “everyone we talked to just loved it and there was not one negative thing that we heard during our reviews.” Finally, she was impressed with the pricing: “not only was it a much better system than our old package, but it was less expensive!”

Once L.A. Financial went live in early 2007, their first order of business was to get some of TFactor’s ‘out of the box’ regulatory and compliance courses in front of their staff. According to Jones, “our staff has responded well to these courses because they are very well written and professional produced. These interactive programs always cover all of the important points and we have received nothing but positive feedback from our staff that has used the system.” Department heads at L.A. Financial also appreciate the new system because the online platform makes it easy for them to schedule, track and review their workers’ training needs. The system ensures that employees are staying current on important regulations, and that managers are able to streamline their annual employee performance reviews and assist them with their career growth.

As the Training Director, Jones is reaping the benefits of a well designed training program. For instance, scheduling under the old system was tedious, time consuming and cumbersome. With TFactor’s system, Jones reports that “we have eliminated costly paperwork and inefficient emailing by using TFactor’s scheduling module and it has saved me a tremendous of time.” Now she can easily keep track of training sessions from beginning to end for the credit unions 100+ employees with just a few clicks of the mouse. She adds that “grading the tests is so simple now – it really makes my job so much easier.”

In terms of creating customized courses, Jones is also quite happy with the new system: “it is a very straightforward process to cut and paste into the system to create new courses. The GUI (graphical user interface) is very flexible, but I can also go behind the scenes if I need to and edit the HTML code directly.” Whenever she needs assistance, TFactor’s knowledgeable technical support team is there to help. “Whether it is by telephone or email, they always get back to me right away,” enthuses Jones. She continues: “the management team at TFactor is very open to enhancements. It is very refreshing to work with a vendor that truly listens to our needs and responds right away.” She concludes that “TFactor is one company that puts a lot of effort into Research and Development and is committed to constantly improving their system. It is a very powerful system that should meet any credit union’s training needs now and in the future.”