An interview with: Amanda Sessions, Senior Curation Specialist – Safety and Compliance (She/Her) Portland, Oregon.
A Senior Curation Specialist specializing in Safety and Compliance, Amanda Sessions assists publishers and customers in complying with regulations and mandates and taking new courses to the next level for learners. Amanda relies on OpenSesame’s exhaustive data and her deep knowledge of the 25,000 courses available. Her curated course lists are custom-created for the exact moment in an organization’s Safety and Compliance initiatives. She’s a futurist in many ways — always staying one step ahead of her customers’ needs and regulatory changes.
Describe your role.
As a Senior Curation Specialist, I work with publishers to help them succeed and ensure we have the latest and greatest safety and compliance content. When I’m not working with publishers, I’m helping recommend the course lists for customers to meet their very specific requirements and preferences.
What makes your role unique at OpenSesame?
Custom curation feels like power when there are 25,000 opportunities to help improve and inspire learning in a workforce
How did the move to a work-from-home economy affect your work?
As workforces have been transitioning from live training to online training, the first thing they needed was Safety and Compliance training. In the peak of 2020, customers were turning to us as the experts of what they should be ready for next. The essential topics needed to be deployed right away, and that included COVID safety and workplace guidelines. It felt good to be a trusted guide and have a solid roadmap for our customers and our publishers in such a historic time. The publishers wanted to know what they ought to create, and the customers wanted to know what they needed to be trained on. It was all easily prescribed by OpenSesame. And, while being compliant with COVID safety became a priority, something that has not gone away has been sexual harassment training. The #MeToo movement began right before I started, and the demand for this important content has not slowed down.
How do you curate the best possible course lists for your customers?
By leveraging all our data—and we have so much. I use our CAP and our comprehensive data to compare it to the personal data and the customer’s requirements. Then I add in language and accessibility requirements and make sure we’re hitting all those. I put all of it together and make the perfect cake. I’m very comfortable as a Safety and Compliance expert. I came from a background of Safety and Compliance in healthcare, and my time at OpenSesame has only helped me establish myself as a specialist in that role.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Our team receives such a wide range of questions, and each one is a challenge and an opportunity to learn. I’ll have a call or two a day with publishers. The other half of the day is spent building customized curated course lists for customers. Much of my work involves supporting customers internally. I love supporting my team in helping our customers. Turning in a curated list to a customer success manager and hearing how I could help the customer is great. Getting to review new publisher content is a delight, and I use my attention to detail to spot opportunities for improvement. I give very specific feedback on details, including terminology and audio/video quality. Previewing a wide range of topics enriches my understanding of professional development.
What is your favorite TED course?
10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation by Celeste Headlee.
How has your role grown since starting at OpenSesame?
I have experienced relationship building and account management on a whole new level in daily work with our publishers and customers. The autonomy we have in our roles allows us to customize our customers’ experience. Not only have I become exposed to a broader range of training content, I feel I have a greater understanding of how a highly successful customer and employee-focused company operates.
Want to know more about how Amanda can curate for you? Check out Amanda’s pre-curated list of courses on Promoting a Culture of Ethics.
To get a better idea of how OpenSesame’s curation team can work with you to help you get the most out of your budget and accelerate engagement, connect with one of our experts for a personalized, guided demo.