City of Phoenix – Modernizing Enterprise Learning for the 5th Largest City in the United States

At a glance

Governing Learning Across 60,000+ Users and 40 Divisions

Managing learning in a city of this size requires far more than deploying software. Each division operates with distinct workflows, reporting needs, certification requirements, and approval structures. Departments such as Fire, EMS, and Water Services maintain unique operational hierarchies that do not always follow traditional organizational models.

Before modernization, many processes relied heavily on spreadsheets, manual certification tracking, and decentralized reporting ownership. Certification expiration dates were tracked in Excel. Safety compliance reporting required manual comparison. Reports were often created and owned by individual employees, making them difficult to maintain when staff transitioned roles.

The City needed a scalable approach that would:

• Automate security and training assignments
• Eliminate manual certification tracking
• Provide executive-level visibility
• Reduce spreadsheet dependency
• Sustain governance across tens of thousands of employees

The goal was to develop a structured learning ecosystem built around governance, automation, compliance visibility, and long-term operational sustainability.

Reporting & Executive Visibility

eSkillz worked strategically with the City to establish Training Team–level and City Manager–level dashboards that provide weekly visibility into training activity, compliance trends, and engagement metrics. City leadership now receives routine access to data through automated email distributions or refreshable dashboards they can access on demand.
To protect reporting continuity, the City adopted a centralized Reporting Administrator model. Previously, reports were created and shared by individual employees, and turnover made long-term maintenance difficult. Centralizing reporting ownership ensures reports can be easily located, updated, and sustained over time.

A department-specific reporting hierarchy was also implemented. With dozens of reports per division, duplicate report creation had become common. Organizing reports by division now prevents unnecessary rework and streamlines updates.

Security Administration at Scale

With 40 divisions managing their own processes and visibility requirements, the City implemented a divisional role-based security model. Standard city-wide roles ensure consistency, while department-specific configurations allow flexibility.

For non-standard access needs, including specialized certification workflow approvals, custom role solutions were developed. Instead of relying on departments to manually manage role placement for thousands of employees, dynamic role assignments now automate placement based on user data. This reduces administrative burden and ensures access remains accurate as employees transition between roles.

Organizational Structure & Automation

The City’s organizational structure required thoughtful system design. eSkillz built and currently maintains a 40-parent-division hierarchy with numerous child divisions, including non-traditional structures such as Fire Department battalions that do not always align by location.
Dynamic Groups were introduced to automate training assignments, security roles, leadership program enrollment, and reporting segmentation. Departments no longer need to manually add users into processes. As employee data changes, group membership adjusts automatically, ensuring the right employees are assigned the right training at the right time.

Certification & Compliance Modernization

Certification tracking was one of the City’s most critical and risk-sensitive processes.

EMS employees often join the City with existing certifications from outside organizations. Previously, training teams manually tracked certification and expiration dates and compared them against state auditing agencies. A custom workflow was developed to allow the City to manage ongoing recertifications within the system while accommodating external certifications. This eliminated the need for manual reconciliation.

City-wide safety certifications were also migrated from Excel-based tracking into automated workflows. Expiration monitoring, reminder notifications, automated assignments, and compliance dashboards now provide proactive oversight. Training teams can identify upcoming expirations months in advance, helping prevent employees from falling out of compliance and reducing potential risk exposure.

Workforce Development & Custom Programs

The City’s internal Leadership Program was previously managed manually, including a waitlist that had grown to two years. By internalizing the program into the learning system and introducing dynamic assignments and structured reporting, the City reduced the waitlist to approximately six months and improved transparency into program participation.

Additional dynamic training programs were developed to automate eligibility-based assignments. For example, the Water Services Department previously relied on multiple spreadsheet matrices to manage hundreds of training programs. Automation now allows assignments to be driven by employee data which eliminates spreadsheet dependency and centralizes tracking within the system.

eSkillz also conducted an analysis of the City’s training evaluation process. Despite delivering over 13,000 instructor-led sessions annually, evaluation response rates were low due to process inefficiencies. Recommendations were provided to streamline evaluation collection and increase participation, giving leadership better insight into training effectiveness.

Today, the City of Phoenix operates a centralized, automated learning environment that supports nearly 60,000+ users and delivers more than 127,000 hours of digital learning annually.

The City has:

• Reduced manual certification tracking
• Automated compliance workflows
• Strengthened executive reporting visibility
• Reduced spreadsheet reliance across divisions
• Modernized role and security management
• Shortened leadership program waitlists
• Increased proactive compliance oversight

What began as a system implementation has matured into a strategic, operationally embedded partnership with eSkillz staff that focuses on continuous improvement. Through its Designated Expert support model, eSkillz provides dedicated administrative and consulting resources that function as an extension of the City’s team, ensuring long-term stability, governance, and continuous improvement.

Together, let’s make your success your reality.

Municipal organizations face complex governance, compliance, and operational demands. Partner with eSkillz to design and sustain learning systems that reduce administrative burden, strengthen compliance oversight, and provide leadership with clear, actionable insight. Our public-sector specialists are ready to help modernize and optimize your learning ecosystem.