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 Mentorship Into Formal Workplace Learning

A mentorship program can turn formal training from a scheduled event into an ongoing workplace habit. Courses, workshops and digital modules provide structure, while mentoring helps employees interpret new ideas, practise skills and apply them to real decisions.

For Australian organisations, this connection matters across varied workforces. A team in Sydney may have different operating rhythms from a regional Queensland site, while FIFO employees, hybrid teams and interstate offices can make informal learning uneven. A deliberate mentoring model creates a dependable support system without replacing formal development.

The strongest programs begin with business capability needs rather than a general desire to “share knowledge”. Leaders should identify which behaviours require reinforcement, who needs support and how improved performance will be observed. This makes mentoring part of the learning strategy instead of a separate employee benefit.

Mentoring also needs clear boundaries. It is different from line management, counselling and performance correction. When participants understand the purpose, time commitment and escalation process, the relationship is more likely to build trust and produce useful evidence of learning transfer.

Formal training	Mentorship support
Introduces consistent knowledge and methods	Applies knowledge to local situations
Uses planned content and assessment	Uses discussion, observation and practice
Reaches groups efficiently	Responds to individual capability needs
Often ends after a course or module	Reinforces learning over several weeks
Measures completion and immediate feedback	Tracks adoption, behaviour and business impact

Align Mentoring With Capability Goals

Start by translating the learning strategy into a small set of capabilities. These might include coaching conversations for new people leaders, safety decision-making for operational teams or consultative selling for account managers. Each mentoring objective should connect to a role requirement and a business outcome.

A capability map can show where formal instruction ends and mentoring begins. For example, a leadership workshop may teach a feedback framework, while a mentor helps a new manager prepare for a difficult conversation, reflect on the result and try again. This division prevents mentoring from becoming unfocused career advice.

Design Roles And Guardrails

Define the responsibilities of sponsors, programme coordinators, mentors, mentees and managers. A sponsor protects the initiative’s visibility, the coordinator manages matching and check-ins, and managers provide work opportunities without taking over the mentoring relationship.

Set practical guardrails around confidentiality, meeting frequency, conflicts of interest and escalation. In Australia, organisations should also consider workplace health and safety responsibilities, privacy obligations and the expectations created by enterprise agreements. These details are especially important when mentors and mentees work across sites or jurisdictions.

Match People For Useful Practice

Matching should consider capability goals, experience, communication style, availability and context. A senior employee from Melbourne may bring valuable expertise, yet a mentee in Perth or a remote mining location may need someone familiar with local operating constraints. Shared interests can help, but they should not outweigh the learning purpose.

Use a short profile and a structured matching process rather than relying on popularity or hierarchy. Where possible, offer a limited rematch window. A poor fit is easier to correct early than to disguise through low attendance and polite but unproductive meetings.

Connect Learning To Daily Work

Mentoring gains value when conversations are tied to real tasks. Ask pairs to review a customer interaction, plan a team briefing, examine a project decision or practise a newly introduced process. Short reflection prompts can help participants move from discussing concepts to changing behaviour.

Learning should appear in the flow of work, not sit in a separate calendar silo. Resources on daily workflows can help designers create reinforcement through team huddles, manager check-ins, job aids and brief learning bursts. This approach suits busy Australian workplaces where travel, rosters and operational priorities limit long meetings.

Practical Design Priorities

Give each mentoring cycle a clear capability outcome.
Schedule fortnightly conversations for three to six months.
Provide discussion guides, practice activities and reflection prompts.
Train mentors in listening, questioning, feedback and boundaries.
Offer accessible options for remote, shift-based and regional employees.
Ask managers to create safe opportunities for skill application.

Equip Mentors To Coach Well

Subject expertise does not automatically make someone an effective mentor. Provide a short preparation session covering active listening, inquiry, constructive challenge, inclusive communication and the difference between advice and coaching. Mentors should learn how to help people think rather than simply provide answers.

Useful tools include conversation planners, observation checklists and sample scenarios. A mentor supporting a first-time manager might rehearse a performance discussion, explore cultural considerations and identify when an issue needs referral to HR. This creates consistency while leaving room for authentic relationships.

Measure Adoption And Business Value

Evaluation should examine more than enrolment, meeting counts or participant satisfaction. Establish a baseline for the target capability, define observable behaviours and identify relevant operational measures. Depending on the programme, these could include internal promotion readiness, quality scores, retention, safety observations, customer outcomes or time to proficiency.

Predictive Evaluation provides a useful way to connect early signals with later results. Its approach to predictive analytics can help organisations forecast adoption, test assumptions and distinguish activity from impact. Collect feedback at several points, then compare what participants report with manager observations and business data.

Sustain The Learning Community

A pilot should have a defined beginning, review point and decision rule for expansion. Start with one capability or cohort, learn from the experience and adjust matching, resources and manager involvement before extending the model across the organisation. This is often more effective than launching a large national programme with little local support.

Recognition can sustain participation without turning mentoring into a competition. Share anonymised lessons, acknowledge mentor contributions and invite alumni to support future cohorts. Whether the programme serves a Sydney office, a regional health service or a distributed resources business, the essential principle remains consistent: formal training introduces the capability, while mentoring helps people use it until it becomes part of how work is done. What readers should remember is that a mentoring program earns its place when it converts learning into observable behaviour and measurable business value.

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.