Development Dimensions International vs. Halogen TalentSpace (discontinued)

When I got hired on at my company, we needed some quick wins and instant content to get some of the initiatives going. Having the facilitator and participant materials all ready to go (Training in a box) was extremely helpful. What would have taken me years to put together myself, I was able to put together in a few months. The materials are very user friendly.

Incentivized

I think it's a good platform for tracking and monitoring goals, feedback, and development. We don't use the 1:1 meeting feature, however, I can see how that would be valuable for many organizations. I do like that it is very customizable, however, that also presents problems in that sometimes forms and/or processes can be a bit challenging to create easily and quickly.

• I enjoyed the process of getting certified to teach topics from DDI. Our master instructor was excellent. He gave wonderful feedback and provided an environment where we could practice our skills and be ready to teach.
• The facilitator and participant materials are very professional and well laid out. They are easy to follow. Especially as a facilitator of the course. The facilitator guide provides very detailed content of what to say and how to teach the topic.
• I love the additional job aids, videos, surveys and reinforcement of training tools they provide for you to use with your learners. They also are provided in various formats (mobile, hard copy, etc.)

Incentivized

• 1:1 agendas are easy to create, add comments to and prompt excellent conversation flow on the topics that truly matter to the manager and the employee.
• The system can be easily customized to reflect your company's language and culture. We did this in several areas of the platform (goals, development, learning), and it made a world of difference in the understanding and adaptation of our users. One example is that in each learning module, we added 3 questions in the course description so that managers would be automatically prompted to ask to follow up / learning transfer questions when their employees enroll and take a learning course.
• Halogen support is outstanding. Any question I have had has been answered upon the first contact or within 24 hours.

Incentivized

• Some of the courses are a bit out of date. They don't always stay up with the times of current trends in the business world.
• I would like to have the option of using the participant materials in a mobile format instead of having to call in and order hard copy participant materials for each course I teach.
• I would like to see more courses converted to Industrial format. I work for an Industrial type company and some of the courses are not relevant or do not hit home for our learners. They say they cannot relate to the case studies, videos, etc.

Incentivized

• My organization does not use all of the functions/modules that Halogen offers, but I find that those modules still appear on the Halogen main page. I think a great area for improvement is to hide these functions so as not to confuse employees.

Incentivized

Implementing a new system and process company wide is never an easy task. We moved so quickly in such a short period of time that we were able to learn quickly but also have the opportunity to improve the Halogen experience. We will more than likely will renew our use of Halogen as we already are seeing a small impact which hopefully in the long run will lead to a greater impact

Incentivized

Halogen is very intuitive and provides very clean work-space ... lots of white space and modern layouts. There is more than one way to accomplish your action, too!

We only purchased the appraisal module and without the other modules offered, you are really limited in what you can do and the process becomes much more involved with needing to maintain information across multiple platforms. We found that they charge for everything and call it "consulting." We poured so much money and time into a system that was just overkill for what we really needed.

Incentivized

It is very easy to use and I can do my own programming instead of paying a technician and waiting sometimes days for them to program the changes.

Get to know your CAM - Customer Account Manager! They are a lifesaver! (Thanks Jorie Basque!)

I like OpenSesame for the numerous options of topics you have to choose from. However, my DDI rep really helped me drill down the topics we needed to focus on. DDI simplified the process for me so it was not so confusing on where to start and what to use. We mapped out a plan together on how to support our employees and leaders in their development.

Incentivized

I have used other systems in the past and I like that Halogen provides everything in one space. I would like to see a more developed way to report training, not in the LMS, but I think that for the most part that Halogen is a robust system that is superior to its competition.

Incentivized

• We are a part of a dealer network. Before we rolled out the training and materials using DDI, we ranked 38 out of 52 dealers for our dealer loyalty score. We are now ranked #2.
• We are seeing our leaders confidence go up. They feel much more confident in how to lead their teams. The environment within the teams has improved. They are having more effective conversations with team members. 1x1s are happening in a more consistent basis.
• Our leaders have more tools than they have had before in how to lead and support their teams. Checklists, templates, surveys, etc.

Incentivized

• We are able to get our reviews done in a quicker amount of time. Instead of 4-8 weeks we were able to get it done under a month.
• Halogen has gotten better at given us a heads up when the system will be down. Most patches are done overnight so we can at least verify it was done, but their success rate of a patch not breaking something is not at 99%. So we do lose productivity when the system is down.
• The tool is easier to do so there are fewer questions from users outside the core team.

Incentivized