Hospitality training company BNXT approached Blend to create an eLearning course that helped leaders in the hospitality industry to develop and practice inclusive behavior.

This was an interesting challenge as it required a smooth, high-quality visuals and flowing storytelling to pull the various scenarios together.

As the eLearning had to feature a range of scenarios to explore bias and inclusivity, we knew that an engaging narrative would be key.

The scenarios needed to cover 6 key topics including:

• Age
• Culture
• Disability
• Gender
• Generational bias
• Appearance

Each scenario explored a typical situation with an employee, where assumptions and personal bias play an important role in how they are handled.

As a result we opted for a soft-skill development approach that let learners explore the various plausible but less emotionally intelligent  approaches that can be taken. In this way it would let them fail and realise where their own personal bias and assumptions were.

A key challenge from a learning design perspective was that the client wanted all the scenarios to flow seamlessly. 

So Blend proposed we tie all of the scenarios together in a day in the life of a manager and lead the learner through the various branching scenarios as if they had arrived for work in a luxury hotel.

We also built a lot of animated cutscenes and developed an overall luxurious visual style to each scene. This not only made it cohesive but also give the scenario context.

The subjects of each scene were animated and set within branching scenarios that let the learner explore multiple approaches to conversations, leading to both positive and negative outcomes.

Blend also gamified the experience by keeping score of scenarios the learner dealt with in a inclusive way and at the end of the course. All of this came together in a cutscene with the hotel senior manager who then gave feedback to the learner and rewarded them with either a gold silver or bronze level.

The BNXT was very happy with the end result. Not only were the various complex topics dealt with in an intuitive way but the overall flow of the project met all the requirements of their brief.

Most importantly, Blend helped BNXT build a piece of eLearning that empowers leaders to develop their soft skills, question their personal bias, and promote a healthy inclusive work environment going forward.