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

Designing onboarding that accelerates time-to-competence

Effective onboarding is a business performance system, not a calendar of welcome sessions and compliance modules. New employees become productive faster when learning is connected to the decisions, behaviors, tools, and relationships required in their actual roles.

A strong onboarding experience reduces uncertainty while giving people opportunities to practice meaningful work. It also creates a measurable path from first exposure to independent performance, helping leaders see whether training is producing capability or simply generating completion data.

Organizations can strengthen this path through an integrated learning consultancy approach that combines enterprise learning strategy, instructional design, leadership development, learning bursts, and practical training delivery.

Define competence before creating content

The first step is to describe what competent performance looks like. This means identifying the tasks employees must complete, the standards they must meet, and the judgment they must apply when conditions vary. Job descriptions rarely provide enough detail, so subject matter experts and managers should translate responsibilities into observable outcomes.

For example, “understand the customer platform” is too broad to guide onboarding. “Resolve a standard customer request in the platform without assistance” is clearer, easier to practice, and easier to evaluate. These performance statements become the foundation for learning objectives, simulations, coaching conversations, and proficiency checks.

Segment the journey around moments of need

New hires do not need every piece of information at once. A staged onboarding journey is more effective when it follows the rhythm of the role: essential orientation first, guided practice next, and increasingly complex responsibilities over time.

Short learning bursts can reinforce critical knowledge between formal sessions. A two-minute demonstration, decision aid, checklist, or manager discussion may be more useful than another hour of presentation. Spaced reinforcement also helps employees retrieve knowledge when they need it, rather than forgetting it after a single event.

Build practice into the first weeks

Competence develops through application, feedback, and repetition. Onboarding should therefore move quickly from explanation to realistic practice. New employees might work through customer scenarios, complete a supervised transaction, rehearse a leadership conversation, or troubleshoot a common operational issue.

A useful design model connects each learning activity to a performance milestone:

Onboarding stage	Employee experience	Evidence of progress
Orientation	Learn the purpose, standards, tools, and relationships surrounding the role	Can explain priorities and locate essential resources
Guided practice	Apply processes in realistic, supported situations	Completes core tasks with coaching
Supported performance	Handle normal work while receiving targeted feedback	Meets quality and productivity expectations
Independent performance	Manage responsibilities without routine assistance	Sustains performance across varied situations

Managers are central to this progression. They should know which behaviors to observe, how to give specific feedback, and when to remove support. Without manager involvement, even well-designed onboarding can remain disconnected from daily work.

Measure adoption and business impact

Completion rates provide limited insight. A learner may finish every module and still struggle to perform. Measurement should examine whether employees are using the required behaviors, reaching proficiency within the expected period, and contributing to business outcomes.

Predictive Evaluation provides a practical way to forecast and measure training adoption, impact, and return on investment. The training value perspective encourages organizations to establish success measures before launch, creating a stronger link between onboarding activity and operational results.

Useful indicators may include time to independent work, first-month error rates, manager coaching hours, customer satisfaction, sales productivity, retention, and quality scores. Baselines and comparison groups can make the results more credible and help identify where the onboarding experience needs adjustment.

Equip managers to reinforce learning

Managers determine whether onboarding continues after formal instruction ends. They set expectations, create opportunities to practice, notice performance gaps, and decide when an employee is ready for greater autonomy. Manager enablement should therefore be designed as part of the onboarding solution rather than treated as a separate initiative.

Provide managers with simple reinforcement tools: weekly check-in prompts, observation guides, role-specific milestones, and escalation paths. A brief conversation about one behavior can have greater impact than a generic reminder to “support the new hire.”

Give managers a clear proficiency checklist for each role.
Schedule practice and feedback during the first 30, 60, and 90 days.
Use realistic work samples instead of knowledge-only quizzes.
Connect onboarding metrics to operational and employee outcomes.
Refresh content when systems, policies, or customer expectations change.

These practices also reveal where the employee experience is breaking down. If many new hires struggle with the same task, the solution may involve clearer job aids, improved system access, better process design, or additional coaching rather than another learning module.

Create a scalable learning architecture

Onboarding should be consistent enough to protect quality and flexible enough to reflect different roles, locations, and levels of experience. A modular architecture makes this possible. Core elements can cover organizational context, culture, safety, tools, and shared standards, while role pathways address technical tasks and customer or operational requirements.

Digital resources, instructor-led sessions, peer learning, manager coaching, and performance support should work together. The aim is not to maximize the number of modalities; it is to place each method where it solves a specific performance need. A complex interpersonal skill may require live practice, while a frequently referenced procedure may be better supported by a searchable job aid.

Organizations developing these capabilities can review broader service capabilities to align custom instructional design, learning strategy, leadership development, and delivery with the business context.

When onboarding is designed as a measurable performance journey, employees gain confidence sooner and managers gain visibility into progress. Begin by mapping the critical tasks, defining evidence of competence, and selecting a small group of outcomes to track. Then pilot the experience with real learners, use the data to refine it, and scale the elements that demonstrably shorten the path to productive performance.

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.