Your Chief Virtual Learning Architect

Learning to Performance

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Custom Design & Delivery

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Predictive Evaluation

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Enterprise Learning Strategy

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Dave Basarab Consulting has elevated the training experience, offering an end-to-end comprehensive approach that includes training strategy, instructional design, development, delivery , post program training transfer, and evaluation (via the unique Predictive Evaluation methodology). Virtual Chief Architect Dave Basarab has combined all of these individual training elements with his user-friendly, comprehensive Learning to Performance approach, which significantly increases companies' training ROI.

Why we are different

Innovation: Our primary focus is creating learning programs using a Learning to Performance approach.
Expertise: Dave offers the depth and breadth of his experience, including working internally at prestigious companies (Motorola, Ingersoll Rand and Pitney Bowes) as well as his knowledge and expertise as a highly-respected, sought-after consultant.
Partnership: Basarab collaborates with companies, serving as their own Chief Learning Officer whenever they need to plan, strategize, or implement training initiatives.

Training Services

Enterprise Learning Strategy

Enterprise Learning Strategy

At Dave Basarab Consulting, we're experts in creating Enterprise Learning Plans. We work with you to develop your company's learning strategy and direction.

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom Design, Development, & Delivery

Custom training is an effective way of developing the capability required to execute your strategy. We are a custom design house that creates programs specific to your business.

Learning Burst Development

Learning Burst Development

We can create and deliver your courses via our unique Learning Burst Method - keeping your employees at their jobs while receiving world-class training.

Predictive Evaluation

Predictive Evaluation

We predict the ROI for your courses and establish success gates. We then evaluate the course against the success gates to show value realized and continually improve results.

Leadership Development

Leadership Development

Turn-key virtual custom leadership development program that combines world-class leadership speakers/educators with post-event personalized coaching to provide you with a cadre of highly skilled leaders.

Predictive Evaluation

Building a Learning Path That Accelerates New Hire Competency

In boardrooms from Brisbane to Perth, the conversation about onboarding has shifted. Senior leaders no longer ask whether induction matters; they ask how quickly a new starter can operate safely, serve customers, and contribute to margin. Across Australia, where skills shortages in healthcare, trades, and professional services remain acute, every week a new hire spends below full productivity carries a real cost. A structured learning path that accelerates time to competency has therefore moved from a nice-to-have into a measurable operational priority.

Australian workplaces also bring their own texture to early tenure. The Fair Work Act and National Employment Standards set baseline expectations, while modern awards shape how trainees, retail assistants, and hospitality teams are paid and rostered. Layer on top the new right to disconnect rules, WHS obligations in mining and construction, and the steady churn of casual and contract roles in Sydney and Melbourne, and the result is a compliance landscape that demands more than a generic induction deck. New hires need targeted, role-specific learning from day one.

The most effective response is a learning path that treats the first six to twelve months as a designed competency journey rather than a one-week event. Predictive Evaluation gives leaders a way to forecast where that journey will deliver results and where it will stall. A clear path, paired with that kind of measurement, replaces guesswork with a credible timeline the business can plan against.

What a Competency-Aligned Path Actually Looks Like

Most legacy onboarding programs focus on orientation: welcome packs, system logins, a handful of policy e-learnings. They tick a compliance box but rarely shorten the gap to full capability. A competency-aligned path is different. It begins with a clear list of the tasks, decisions, and behaviours the role requires, then sequences learning around them in roughly two-to-four-week sprints.

That shift changes the conversation between HR and hiring managers. Instead of debating whether someone has "finished onboarding", both sides can point to observable indicators: completing a customer call without supervision, running a stocktake in a Brisbane distribution centre, or closing a small business loan at a regional Bendigo branch. Each indicator becomes a checkpoint where learning, feedback, and manager coaching converge.

Comparing Old Onboarding with a Structured Path

Traditional onboarding	Structured learning path
One-week orientation, then ad hoc learning	6–12 month sequenced journey with checkpoints
Generic compliance modules	Role-specific tasks mapped to WHS, Fair Work, and industry requirements
Manager involvement limited to first-week introductions	Manager acts as coach across each sprint
Success measured by module completion	Success measured by observable competency milestones
Limited data beyond LMS records	Predictive Evaluation forecasts adoption and impact

This kind of structure matters most in regulated and high-risk environments. On a Pilbara mine site, a new operator who has not mastered isolation procedures cannot simply be supervised into safety; competency must be evidenced. The same applies to graduate nurses in Adelaide hospitals, junior public servants in Canberra, and new branch staff in Tasmania.

Using Predictive Evaluation to Shorten the Ramp

When learning leaders can forecast which segments of a cohort will struggle and why, they can intervene earlier. Predictive Evaluation for new hires is the methodology that makes this possible. It looks at engagement signals, manager feedback, and assessment data to flag at-risk learners within weeks rather than quarters. A team leader in a Melbourne call centre can see that a cluster of trainees is falling behind on system navigation, then redirect coaching hours before the gap widens.

This approach also changes how the business talks about learning. CFOs and operations leaders in Sydney towers respond well to forecasts expressed in weeks saved and revenue protected. A path that credibly trims four weeks off the average ramp time is easier to fund than one that promises engagement scores.

Manager Capability as the Hidden Multiplier

Even the cleanest learning path collapses without an active manager. The data from Australian learning programs consistently shows that the quality of the first conversation after a learning block determines whether the content sticks. Managers who can debrief, redirect, and connect the lesson to a live task multiply the value of every module a new hire completes.

Building that capability requires its own investment. Securing stakeholder buy-in for the time, the training, and the protected coaching slots is often the hardest part. It helps to frame the ask around retention and productivity rather than learning hours, especially in a tight labour market where replacing a frontline hire in regional Western Australia can cost upwards of twenty thousand dollars.

Sustaining Competency Beyond the First Ninety Days

The first three months attract most of the attention, yet the second and third quarters are where capability quietly matures. New hires in Australian professional services firms typically hit their first real stretch assignment around month five. In retail, the first peak trading period after induction is the first real test. In mining, the first scheduled shutdown after onboarding reveals whether safety knowledge is embedded or merely memorised.

Reinforcement needs to be deliberate: monthly manager-led debriefs, scenario-based refreshers, and short learning bursts tied to live projects. Spaced practice beats massed re-training every time. The path should also be reviewed at the six-month mark, with the original competency map updated to reflect what the business has learned about the role.

Common Pitfalls When Designing a New Hire Path

Treating onboarding as a one-week event rather than a year-long journey
Designing modules without input from the people who manage new hires day to day
Ignoring the Fair Work and modern award context when scheduling learning time
Measuring success by LMS completion instead of observed competency
Overloading the first month and leaving the rest of the path thin
Failing to budget manager time for coaching and feedback

Begin by mapping the competencies the role genuinely requires, then sequence them in short, manager-supported sprints. Use investing in learning analytics to build the case for the investment, secure consensus on the timeline, and commit to measuring outcomes the operations team actually cares about. Pilot the path with one cohort in a single location, refine it for a quarter, then scale it across the rest of the business.

Learning to Performance

Learning to Performance, a complete training approach, gives companies world-class training to drive significant return. This approach includes upfront work (Impact Mapping, design), training (for staff and company executives), and post-training efforts to ensure training transfer. This unique recipe - the key for successful training and adoption - is changing the way companies implement training. This methodology could work with any content for organizations in any industry.