Boston Pizza strives to achieve the perfect guest experience. But with 367 locations across Canada, the vast majority of which are franchise owned and operated, it was difficult for the company to ensure that its 23,000 employees were properly trained and engaged.

Given the dispersed nature of its workforce, the company decided the best solution to its learning problem was social media tools. Boston Pizza had a learning management system developed specifically for franchise learning, but the company felt it wasn’t doing enough to drive informal learning and create a culture of collaboration, competition and peer recognition.

To infuse those elements into its learning strategy, Boston Pizza’s Caroline Schein, vice president of people and operations development, led the creation of the Boston Pizza Exchange in 2013. The social component of the platform supports ongoing employee communication by encouraging in-the-moment team recognition as well as best practice sharing. A text message feature was also launched to drive ease of communication.

To promote learning, the platform housed video courses that employees can watch at any time. Previously managers would need to follow up with employees to make sure each course was completed before launching a new one. With the Boston Pizza Exchange managers can give points for completion and bonus points for early completion. It seems to be working. Completion rates remain above 90 percent, and managers spend less time tracking and encouraging employees to learn.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina used to train employees the old-fashioned way: in the classroom. But as its work environment became more fluid with flexible work schedules and frequent changes in products, systems and processes, the organization required a more engaging, point-of-need solution to drive workforce learning.

To fulfill that need and bring learning directly to its employees, Adri Maisonet-Morales, vice president of enterprise learning and development, implemented an on-demand media management system to support its employees as active learners instead of passive consumers of media content. Blue Learning Opportunities On-demand Media, or BLOOM, is a Ted Talk-style video platform that offers micro lectures from internal thought leaders as well as educational videos.

It works. The program launched in 2013, and as of May 15, BLOOM videos have been played 24,830 times. The organization also projects an annual savings of $225,000 thanks to learners spending less time consuming training.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation addresses areas of great need across the globe. From poverty to health and education, it seeks to dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people. Technology aids the process.

Darren Nerland, manager of learning and innovation, helped the foundation develop a solution where each machine employees use is equipped with a scannable bar code that links their phone to job aids and videos for instant access to on-the-job learning.