State of Ohio Expands Its Talent Strategy with Cornerstone and eSkillz

At a glance

The State of Ohio needed learning and talent systems that could support a large, complex public sector workforce while balancing statewide consistency with the unique needs of individual agencies. With up to 250,000 users and 27 agencies, the State required platforms that could manage required training, support multiple learner populations, maintain compliance, protect agency-specific access, and provide reliable reporting.

The State’s legacy Oracle Taleo Learn environment also created major migration and modernization needs. Agencies had effectively operated in separate sites, which created duplicate content, inconsistent access, and added administrative effort. As the State moved to Cornerstone, it needed a more centralized system that could still support each agency’s rules, content, approvals, workflows, reporting needs, user scenarios, and governance requirements.

External user access was another important consideration. The platform needed to support internal users, contractors, county and state employees, and external populations such as foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers. These users needed reliable access to the right content in the same platform experience, creating a more consistent and manageable approach for both learners and administrators.
For the State, moving to Cornerstone was not just a technical replacement. It was a statewide transformation effort requiring careful discovery, stakeholder alignment, secure configuration, historical data continuity, organizational change management, and a foundation that could eventually support broader talent initiatives beyond learning.

eSkillz supported the State through a series of major Cornerstone and Oracle Taleo Learn engagements, beginning with a statewide Oracle Taleo Learn implementation in 2019 and continuing through departmental and statewide Cornerstone Learn migrations and the State’s current Cornerstone Elevate expansion.

Across these engagements, eSkillz provided project management, implementation consulting, technical consulting, data migration, integrations, testing support, change readiness support, administrator training, and end-user support services. The team worked closely with State stakeholders, IT teams, agency leaders, Cornerstone, and other vendors to understand each business need and design practical solutions that could work across a large public sector environment.

For the State’s learning modernization efforts, eSkillz helped translate legacy Oracle Taleo Learn structures into scalable Cornerstone designs. This included agency-specific configurations, organization unit structures, security roles, provider relationships, access rules, user segmentation, single sign-on approaches, automated user imports, self-registration, custom login pages, vILT integrations, Edge Import, master data loads, historical data loads, and detailed testing support.

A key part of the statewide Cornerstone design was helping multiple agencies operate effectively within one enterprise system. eSkillz helped the State move away from a legacy model where agencies operated more separately and often maintained duplicate content. In Cornerstone, eSkillz helped create a more centralized structure that still allowed agencies to manage their unique training needs, approval workflows, user populations, reporting requirements, and compliance obligations.

eSkillz also supported external user access across key populations, including contractors, county and state employees, and external audiences such as foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers. This included improving how external users accessed the right content in the same platform experience, making the process more consistent for learners and easier to manage for administrators.

As part of later phases, eSkillz supported additional agency onboarding, the implementation and use of forms, improvements to external user content access, and the move of the Department of Aging from its own Cornerstone instance into the Statewide Cornerstone environment in June 2026.

The State has also expanded its Cornerstone strategy through Cornerstone Elevate. In 2025, the State partnered with eSkillz again for a phased statewide deployment of Recruiting, Onboarding, and Performance. As part of this active initiative, eSkillz has worked with the State and Cornerstone to address complex recruiting requirements, including External User Conflict resolution and Person of Interest functionality.

Through its partnership with eSkillz, the State of Ohio has completed multiple large-scale learning and talent technology initiatives across one of the most complex public sector environments in the country.

The State successfully moved from Oracle Taleo Learn to Cornerstone, creating a more modern and scalable learning environment for up to 250,000 users across multiple agencies. The work helped the State preserve critical learning history, support required training, improve access for internal and external users, and maintain the agency-level flexibility needed in a statewide public sector environment.

eSkillz migrated more than 100,000 learning objects and 55,000+ user accounts during the original Oracle Taleo Learn implementation, delivered more than 100 administrator training courses, and later supported the migration of more than 5,000,000 historical learning records into Cornerstone. This helped protect data continuity, compliance reporting, and long-term learning history across the State’s enterprise learning environment.

The Department of Children and Youth successfully launched Cornerstone Learn for 50,000+ users, supporting internal and external audiences with training, certifications, licensing needs, virtual instructor-led training, self-registration, integrations, and historical transcript continuity. The Department also expanded its partnership with eSkillz through 24/7 End-User Support services for 26,000 users, helping administrators stay focused on system functionality, reporting, and ongoing platform operations.

With Cornerstone Learn in place statewide, agencies can now deliver training aligned to their unique needs while operating within a more unified enterprise platform. The move helped reduce duplicate content, improve consistency for internal and external users, and give administrators a more centralized structure for managing access, training, forms, reporting, and governance.

The State has also continued its Cornerstone journey through Cornerstone Elevate, creating a path toward a more connected talent management ecosystem. Through ongoing collaboration among the State, eSkillz, and Cornerstone, the team continues to address complex recruiting, onboarding, and performance needs in support of the State’s broader workforce strategy.

Together, let’s make your success your reality.

​Large public sector Cornerstone projects are not simple system migrations. They require a clear understanding of legacy platforms, agency governance, data migration, integrations, security, compliance, stakeholder alignment, and long-term workforce strategy.

eSkillz helps organizations make that transition with a practical, strategic approach. Our team does more than configure the platform. We help clients translate legacy processes into scalable Cornerstone designs, support cross-functional decision-making, protect data continuity, and prepare the platform for future growth.

If you’re planning a move from Oracle Taleo Learn to Cornerstone or looking to modernize your public sector workforce ecosystem, connect with eSkillz to see how we can help you achieve a smoother transition and stronger results.