How Talentenregio unified learning for 27 government organizations with Totara

Talentenregio is a partnership of 27 government organizations across the Dutch provinces of Overijssel, Drenthe, Gelderland, and Flevoland. Its focus is the development and job satisfaction of 12,000 employees, enabling them to make a positive contribution to all residents and to society as a whole.

The Challenge

Talentenregio offers a broad and varied range of services focused on learning, development, and collaboration within the public sector. Employees of member organizations can take part in events, webinars, trainings, and learning programs. Talentenregio also runs its own trainee program, promotes job mobility, and operates a regional job market. It supports a range of professional networks centered on knowledge sharing and collaboration, and through the regional coaching network employees gain access to personal guidance and development.

A diverse group of organizations actively uses this shared approach, including the Province of Overijssel, 21 municipalities in and beyond Overijssel, ONS, Tiem Zwolle, Veiligheidsregio IJsselland, and Omgevingsdienst IJsselland. Together they join forces to strengthen talent development, knowledge sharing, and sustainable employability across the region.

In search of a versatile learning platform

To support learning and development, Talentenregio set out to find a learning platform that could meet a wide range of requirements. The new system had to support an extensive classroom training portfolio alongside online courses. It was also essential that every member organization could use the central platform while still offering tailored trainings to its own employees in its own visual identity.

In addition, the platform had to support and encourage networking between the organizations. After a thorough market exploration, Talentenregio chose Totara and UP learning.

The Solution

Talentenregio’s goal is for employees at the participating organizations to learn actively and go beyond the mandatory trainings. The second target is that by 2029, five years after launch, 50% of the organizations will be using the Talentenregio Ontwikkel Plein (TOP), built on Totara. With a clear vision and strategy, Talentenregio is well on track to reach this goal.

Smartly combining shared and tailored training

Talentenregio enables member organizations to offer their own tailored training alongside the shared catalog. The multitenant setup of Totara makes this possible. Enthusiasm for this approach is so strong that organizations are increasingly replacing their own Learning Management System (LMS) with Totara. Among other benefits, they gain the ability to bring all training and development activities together in one place.

From onboarding to talent development

From onboarding and trainings on working in decentralized government to courses on personal effectiveness and talent development, everything runs through a single central learning platform. The same applies to networking within the groups most relevant to each employee. The fact that this fuels a desire to learn is clear from the number of trainings completed beyond the mandatory ones, and from the many network groups actively exchanging knowledge.

Employers stay on top of costs

All 12,000 employees across the organizations have access to Talentenregio’s training catalog, much of which consists of classroom courses. Participants register through the Seminar activity in Totara. Because they enter their familiar general ledger code right away, every employer keeps a clear grip on costs.

Workspaces for sharing knowledge and trends

In addition to having all learning activities in one place, users are invited to connect through network groups with peers at similar organizations. These dedicated digital spaces have become the heart of the 27 member organizations for sharing knowledge and trends.

Trainees get to know each other

Every year, Talentenregio welcomes several groups of trainees who work across the different organizations. Totara gives them an overview of every step in this annual program. Through the platform, trainees are invited to collaborate on assignments, and they maintain digital contact with each other through network groups. This encourages collaboration from an early stage and means participants stay easily in touch with one another long after the traineeship ends.

Organizations develop together

Organizations work closely together on the development of eLearning modules that are relevant to everyone. By joining forces, no one has to develop everything from scratch, and the quality of the catalog rises sharply. Because Talentenregio does not buy in standardized content, colleagues recognize it as “their own learning material” and are more inclined to complete trainings.

Talentenregio keeps growing

Each month, Talentenregio hosts a meeting with all tenants to gather input for future development and discuss how specific features are used. Filtering is one example: filters in the catalog need to be relevant for everyone, and through mutual coordination this works exceptionally well. These meetings also bring the member organizations closer together while Totara is continuously optimized. As a result, joining as a tenant becomes more attractive for others, and Talentenregio is taking on an increasingly important role as the partner of choice for learning and development in the region.

The Results

Before TOP (Talentenregio Ontwikkel Plein) was introduced, learning administration across the network was handled entirely by hand in Excel spreadsheets. It was a time consuming, error prone process with no central overview.

TOP has fundamentally changed that. Built on Totara, the platform now serves as a shared learning infrastructure for 27 government organizations in the provinces of Overijssel, Drenthe, Gelderland, and Flevoland, and supports the professional development of 12,000 employees.

Adoption & Integration

With 22 active SSO connections, 81% of member organizations show that they treat TOP as part of their own organization and feel engaged with Talentenregio.

Efficiency & Speed

A standard LMS implementation typically takes at least 3 months, but with TOP organizations can be fully operational within 4 weeks: a time saving of 75%. A formal tender procedure is no longer needed, since organizations can simply join TOP, which significantly lowers the barrier to entry. In the first year, two organizations have already migrated from an existing LMS to TOP, and two organizations without an LMS have joined as new members.

Quality & Professionalization

Administration that used to be manual is now fully automated: attendance registration, certificate issuance, and communications all run as a smooth, integrated process. Member organizations now have real time insight into employee training participation. The platform also encourages social learning through network groups and prompts organizations to collaborate on learning and development. By jointly developing eLearnings, there is no need to reinvent the wheel every time.

Growth Trajectory

With 2 organizations already active, of which one migration from another LMS, 2 more organizations going live soon and 6 organizations in active exploratory talks, TOP is set to reach this five year goal well ahead of schedule.