Coach Alix from Faculty of Skills rewarded with Learning Award 2021

Faculty of Skills was honored at the presentation of the international Learning Awards in London. The programme developed with health insurer Zilveren Kruis won a gold award in the Learning Technologies category. Artificial intelligence coach Alix from Faculty of Skills plays an important role in that programme.

The training is part of the onboarding programme for new service staff at Zilveren Kruis. Because of the hectic year-end rush for health insurances, hundreds of new employees have to be trained in a short period of time every year. With the training programme, they practice the skills necessary for conversations with customers in TrainTool.

Artificial intelligence coach Alix

The programme consists of a series of role plays with 'customers' who call with a question. The employee speaks to the customer and records that response in TrainTool. Next, Coach Alix gets to work. Alix listens to the recording and checks what is said against pre-set criteria. The participant immediately receives a personal feedback report with what went well and what can be improved. Automating this feedback is ideal for programmes with large groups of participants, such as at Zilveren Kruis.
Savanna Broekman, Project Manager L&O at Zilveren Kruis: "Alix ensures that participants receive feedback quickly and in a uniform way. In the evaluation, participants also indicated that they were happy with this tool. Alix helps them to learn at their own pace and at a time of their choice. They even get feedback on Sundays!"

Many opportunities for Alix

Alix is being used in more and more Faculty of Skills programmes, including a training course for employees at Praxis DIY store. Participants are enthusiastic about the feedback from the virtual coach. Participants appreciate the feedback from Alix just as much as they do from human coaches. Alix also supports those coaches in their work. Because standard skills are automatically checked, the human coach can spend more time and energy on a nuanced feedback report.

The Learning Awards

The Learning Awards have been around since 1996 and are given annually to the best, most innovative projects in the field of workplace learning worldwide. The program for Zilveren Kruis has won awards before. In late 2019, the program won two Learning Technologies Awards in the categories of Excellence in the design of learning content and Best use of blended learning.