How PKF O’Connor Davies eliminated Learning & Compliance legwork with LCvista

Before LCvista

PKF O’Connor Davies is one of the fastest-growing US firms for good reason. The accounting and advisory practice has always held itself to a high standard, especially when it comes to creating value for its clients. The firm is always looking for ways to drive efficiencies, uncover opportunities, and manage client risk.

The Learning and Development (L&D) team wanted a Learning & Compliance system that would serve its employees similarly. They needed a solution that would drive efficiencies for the firm’s small but mighty L&D team, uncover learning opportunities for 1,500-plus professionals, and manage risk through extensive compliance management.

After LCvista

With LCvista, PKF O’Connor Davies has gained the equivalent of a new L&D team member. Even as the firm continues to grow, LCvista has continued to transform and automate a number of processes that used to be labor-intensive, stressful, and tedious. It’s also allowed the L&D team to get creative in envisioning the future. They know they’ve found a tool—and a team—that will support them for years to come.

A “big need” for a unified Learning & Compliance tool

Brett Settles has been with PKF O’Connor Davies for over 12 years, originally joining the firm as an HR Director before moving into the role of Director of Learning and Development. In that time, the firm has grown by over 6x—from 250 employees to over 1,500. Having a front-row seat to that growth, Brett had a unique perspective on what the company needed in a Learning & Compliance solution.

“By 2021, we had a big need for a new system overall,” he says. While the firm did have a compliance tool, it didn’t have an LMS, and Brett remembers how acutely his team felt that lack. “Learning & Compliance is a full cycle process,” he says. As he describes it, when Learning & Compliance live in separate places—or if the firm only supports one and not the other—it creates a tedious, disjointed process. “Having them accessible in the same place just makes it easier. It not only promotes getting credits, but it also promotes learning.”

Brett was also looking for a platform that could, as he puts it, act as a team member. “Like a lot of other firms, we have a very lean and mean L&D team. It’s difficult to work with what we have,” he says. Prior to LCvista, things like reports would take hours for an individual to complete. Brett knew that the right tool would allow his team to “get out of the nitty gritty,” automating things like creating and sending out calendar invites, processing credit, capturing evaluations, and everything in between.

Overall, Brett wanted a system that would act as a one-stop shop for all things Learning & Compliance. “Having everything in one place promotes learning in itself, which is also an objective we have as an organization,” he says. If he could find a system that aligned well with PKF O’Connor Davies’ own values, he’d know he found the right solution.

New systems can be a headache. LCvista wasn’t.

Anyone who’s been tasked with finding and implementing a new system knows how tricky the process can be. There’s the hours of research, the weighing of vendors, the negotiations, and the implementation, any of which can set the whole process back by weeks if not months when things don’t go according to plan. Brett was surprised by how painless the process of finding and implementing a new L&D plus plus CPE Compliance system actually turned out to be.

After speaking with a Director of L&D from another firm, two contenders emerged: LCvista and Prolaera (this was before the two organizations merged in 2022). “That really reduced the amount of research I had to do,” Brett says. “It was clear that two options set themselves apart from the competition.” He decided to keep the decision-making process simple. He’d set up two meetings and see which option came out on top.

Once Brett found a clear winner in LCvista, he started preparing for the implementation. And while he was ready for anything, he was pleasantly surprised with how easy LCvista’s team made things. “Any integration is very overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn, and a lot going through your mind,” he says. But the team thoroughly explained what was needed up front and answered questions promptly. “We were able to get up to date quickly because of the support and guidance that LCvista gave us. Everyone was very supportive, approachable, and responsive.”

Once the implementation was complete, the L&D team prepared to learn the ropes of LCvista. Annette DiGuiseppi, PKF O’Connor Davies’ Learning & Development Coordinator, remembers the relief of finally working with a system that was up to date. “Before I came to the firm,” she says, “I was used to working with systems that were kind of outdated. When I came here, it was just so easy to start learning. I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get to know the system and just jump right into it.”

It wasn’t long before the team was using every feature LCvista offered. “I was consistently impressed with how user-friendly it was,” says Annette. Before long, the team wasn’t just familiar with LCvista—they were also getting tangible time-savings (and less tangible, but just as important, reductions in stress).

The tangible—and intangible—benefits of using LCvista

Besides the ease of use and speedy time to value, the L&D team loved the time savings LCvista enabled. “I was able to distribute credit within 10 minutes after courses finished. The turnaround time was just unreal,” says Annette.

In fact, Annette quickly noticed that LCvista improved her entire daily workflow. “The start to finish process—creating the course, creating the program, creating the sessions, inviting and enrolling our participants—was all so easy.” Brett adds that other processes, like creating certificates, instantly transformed from a manual hours-long slog to “a couple of clicks of the mouse—it really felt like having another person on our team.”

And while it’s great to have hard numbers to point to, Brett and Annette are quick to mention the hard-to-quantify benefits as well. For example, there are tools within LCvista that offer more than time savings—they allow the team to do things they couldn’t before. As Annette mentions, “The bulk email selection is probably my favorite feature, because it makes it so much easier than searching everyone’s name. There’s no way I would be able to do all of that manually.”

“There are some things you can’t really put a number on,” adds Brett. “Maybe you saved 10 hours, but how much frustration and stress is tied in with it that would elevate that number further?” Overall, both Brett and Annette agree that the biggest change LCvista has afforded their team is a reduction in stress. “It would be very difficult to operate without it now. Losing the automation and compliance… we’d probably be in tears,” says Brett.

A one-stop accounting L&D + CPE compliance shop

Initially, one of the biggest draws of LCvista for Brett was that it was made specifically for the accounting industry. “That’s a huge value and builds more trust on our side,” says Brett. “I can easily ask what other LCvista clients are doing, which is great from a best practices point of view.”

It also means a lot from a compliance perspective. “The fact that there’s a compliance department takes a lot of pressure off of us, since we don’t yet have one of our own,” says Brett. “Knowing that we don’t have to constantly research new changes is great.”

Brett and his team are also enjoying how nimble they can be with trainings by using Content Marketplace (CMP). “We know that if we don’t have content, we can easily get it,” says Brett. Having that marketplace with all the vendors we would want to have takes a lot of the legwork out of it. It’s allowed us to be versatile.”

This applies to purchasing content as well. Where before there were rate negotiations, contracts, and other hoops to jump through, today Brett can purchase content instantly, with no hassle. “To have a platform where you don’t have to go through contracts, I think that’s a perfect-world scenario. ‘Boom, here are the courses.’”

CMP has also helped PKF O’Connor Davies enhance its learning plans. “Learning plans are critical, not only from a growth perspective, but also from a recruiting perspective,” says Brett. Being able to offer tailored learning plans to professionals at most levels in the firm has been a big part of supporting this initiative. “Knowing that people can just log in and see all the trainings that are required and available promotes an ongoing learning culture.”

A future-focused solution

The L&D team always knew that their new Learning & Compliance solution would need to be flexible. They wanted to find a vendor that would invest in their own product and improve. They found that vendor in LCvista. “When we’ve asked for enhancements, we love that they acknowledge it and say, ‘Yeah, that’s something we have on file and are planning to address.”

This flexibility makes it clear that LCvista will continue to improve Learning & Compliance at PKF O’Connor Davies. “I’m just excited to see what’s next,” says Brett. “I love that the team can ask me what’s on my wish list, and I know they’re listening. Just seeing what’s down the line is very exciting for us.”