New fund accountants were taking eight weeks to reach independent NAV-calc competency. The training programme was four mornings of slides plus a multiple-choice exit quiz — no real test of whether the trainee could open Excel and do the work. Three months in, line managers were still hand-holding through reconciliations.
The L&D team rebuilt the programme as three layered surfaces. A Decks deck for the live morning sessions (one for each fund type — mutual, hedge, private equity). A SCORM eLearning module for the asynchronous prework. An XLSim assignment set for the daily skills practice: NAV calculation, price exceptions, fair-value methodology, monthly recon. Trainees see the deck in the room, do the prework before the next session, and prove the skill before they're cleared to touch a live workbook.
Time-to-independent-competency fell from eight weeks to three. The team now has objective data on who's stuck on what — visible at the cohort level, exportable for the audit conversation. Line managers report 'I don't have to babysit reconciliations any more.'