in cybersecurity
compliance
How BankWest built a culture of
continuous learning
42%
improvement
+8pts
increase
in organizational
knowledge
3.5hrs
saved
by the L&D team per
instructor-led training
For BankWest, a community bank serving individuals, businesses and agricultural customers across South Dakota, transforming learning was never going to be as simple as introducing a new platform. The goal was to change how employees thought about learning altogether, moving it from something they had to complete to something that became part of how they worked, developed and stayed prepared every day.
With Axonify, BankWest has created a continuous learning experience that combines reinforcement, gamification, communication and recognition. The result is a highly engaged workforce with stronger knowledge, measurable improvements and a learning culture employees actively participate in.
Challenges
Moving beyond “check-the-box” training
Before Axonify, BankWest’s learning environment was fragmented across multiple systems. Employees completed
required courses, but training was often long, infrequent and focused more on completion than long-term retention.
As Dr. Becky Burke, Chief of Philanthropy and Strategic Officer at BankWest, puts it: “Employees would complete the courses because they had to, but it really was check-the-box type learning. It wasn’t learning learning.”
For an organization with employees spread across South Dakota, that created an additional challenge: ensuring people received consistent information and could recall key details when they needed them.
Training might happen once or twice a year, with little reinforcement in between. Managers and supervisors had to spend additional time reinforcing important concepts, and BankWest had limited visibility into whether employees were retaining what they learned.
The effects showed up in audits and compliance findings, but also in everyday work. Knowledge gaps could create friction as processes moved between departments, with work sometimes sent back because employees didn’t have the information they needed to move it forward.
BankWest wanted something fundamentally different: learning embedded into the flow of work, with ongoing reinforcement that could help knowledge stick.
“Employees would complete the courses because they had to, but it really was check-the-box type learning. It wasn’t learning learning.”
Dr. Becky Burke, Chief of Philanthropy & Strategic Officer, BankWest
Solution
Making learning part
of every day
BankWest approached Axonify as more than an implementation of technology. From the beginning, the team focused on creating an experience to which employees would want to return.
The organization built excitement before launch with employee communications, early supervisor access and training, executive video messages and teaser campaigns. It then introduced Axonify capabilities in phases, giving employees time to get comfortable with the experience before expanding it.
Once Axonify was established, daily questions and microlearning became central to BankWest’s continuous learning strategy.
“The daily questions have really become part of our culture,” says Burke.
When some reinforcement questions were temporarily switched off, BankWest’s compliance team immediately noticed. Their response? “Where are they? Everybody needs to be getting them so we need to turn them back on.”
It was a striking change from the days when learning was something employees simply had to get through.
Making learning something employees want to do
One of BankWest’s priorities was changing employees’ perception of workplace learning itself. “Bank training historically has not been fun,” Burke says. “We had to shift the mindset of the employees to view learning positively.”
Axonify gave the team multiple ways to make that happen. Games introduce friendly competition. Tell-a-Friend provides peer-to-peer encouragement. Communities and announcements keep important information visible. Kudos make recognition part of the experience. And optional learning gives employees opportunities to take greater ownership of their development.
“We made it fun,” says Burke. “Making learning fun is one of the key steps for retention. You need to create memorable learning experiences.”
BankWest also connects engagement with tangible rewards through its Best Bucks program. Employees earn virtual currency through activities such as learning and sending Kudos, then redeem their Best Bucks for branded merchandise, raffles and other rewards.
Employees even set their own goals around what they want to earn. “They’re like, ‘I want this jacket,’ or ‘I want that piece of logo wear, so I’m going to save my Best Bucks. I’m going to do some extra development…to get there,’” says Burke.
Recognition has become another powerful engagement driver. Since launching Axonify, more than 45,900 Kudos have been shared across BankWest, helping employees celebrate everything from birthdays and work anniversaries to everyday contributions and accomplishments.
“We made it fun. Making learning fun is one of the key steps for retention.”
Dr. Becky Burke, Chief of Philanthropy & Strategic Officer, BankWest
Reinforcing learning instead of relying on “one and done”
BankWest also changed what happens after formal training. Instructor-led sessions are followed by daily reinforcement questions, short video courses, certifications and assessments, creating repeated opportunities for employees to revisit and apply important information.
“We don’t do the one and done anymore,” says Burke. “We try to make sure that we always have those follow-ups because we’ve seen the impact of having that consistent exposure for increasing retention.”
Axonify Events has helped BankWest bring that same connected approach to instructor-led learning. Previously, scheduling multiple sessions for frontline employees meant sending multiple Outlook invitations and creating confusion about which session employees should attend.
With Events, BankWest has simplified the process, while saving its L&D team an average of 3.5 hours and approximately $95.75 in salary costs per training.
Using employee insights to shape learning
BankWest also uses Axonify to create a two-way conversation around learning—gathering employee input to understand what people need, then using those insights to shape the experience.
That approach played an important role when BankWest prepared to roll out Copilot Chat, an AI-powered workplace assistant that helps generate content. Before training began, the L&D team used an Axonify poll to gauge employees’ experience with and comfort using generative AI. Rather than giving everyone the same training, BankWest used those insights to create different learning levels for beginner, intermediate and advanced users.
The team continued the conversation after training, using follow-up polls to understand whether employees were using Copilot Chat and how comfortable they felt with it. Ongoing polls have helped BankWest continue tracking those signals over time.
The approach gives BankWest a way to meet employees where they are instead of making assumptions about what they know. They use Axonify not only to deliver learning, but to listen, adapt and understand how learning is translating into the workplace.
Results
Stronger knowledge—and behavior that shows it
BankWest’s continuous learning strategy has translated into sustained participation and measurable knowledge growth.
Organizational knowledge has increased from 84% to 92%—an eight-point improvement. Current knowledge has reached 90%, compared with an industry benchmark of 83%, while employee confidence stands at 8.3 versus an industry benchmark of 5.8.
Participation is strong, too. BankWest has achieved 92% participation compared with a financial services benchmark of 41%, while employees average 9.2 engagements compared with a benchmark of 6.8. Half of employees have completed optional learning paths, and more than half of all learning sessions include games.
For Burke, those numbers represent something bigger than platform activity.
92%
participation
vs. a financial-services
benchmark of 41%
90%
current knowledge
vs. an industry
benchmark of 83%
8.3
employee confidence
vs. a benchmark of 5.8
“When you think about it, there are thousands and thousands and thousands of different learning moments going on across our organization. Eight percentage points—it’s significant.”
That knowledge is also translating into measurable business outcomes.
Cybersecurity is one of the clearest examples. BankWest conducts monthly simulated phishing tests and set a goal of keeping its click rate below 5%. It finished the year at just 0.6%, while reducing the number of clicks from 89 in 2024 to 52 in 2025.
Its data loss prevention program produced another strong result: BankWest’s goal was for no employee to accumulate two DLP violations during the year. Not only did it achieve that goal, there were just two DLP email violations across the entire organization, involving two different employees.
The impact is visible beyond the metrics, too. “What we’ve seen is employees are gaining confidence in their knowledge and their skills,” says Burke. “When they feel confident, when they feel prepared, they really provide that better experience and service for our customers.”
Learning, she says, is no longer simply another assignment.
“Employees started seeing that learning isn’t just something that’s assigned to them. It’s really becoming part of how they work and develop professionally.”
And sometimes the clearest proof is much simpler, when Burke hears from her teams: “Hey, I know that because I saw it in Axonify.”
“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of different learning moments going on across our organization.”
Dr. Becky Burke, Chief of Philanthropy & Strategic Officer, BankWest
Advantage Plus
A partner behind the scenes
As BankWest expanded what it was doing with Axonify, the team also faced a resourcing decision.
When its system administrator left the organization, BankWest needed administrative expertise, but it also had a greater need for another learning facilitator. Around the same time, the team learned about Axonify Advantage Plus.
Advantage Plus allowed BankWest to rethink hiring entirely. Instead of hiring another system administrator, the team added the facilitator it needed and turned to Axonify for specialized platform support.
“Being able to do Advantage Plus has been a real nice benefit for us because we didn’t have to hire that full-time equivalent,” says Burke.
But for BankWest, the value goes well beyond completing administrative tasks.
With Advantage Plus, BankWest has Axonify expertise at its fingertips, helping the team complete complex platform work faster and freeing up valuable internal time. More importantly, that support is proactive. Burke recalls changing dates associated with mandatory training events without mentioning the change. During a later system audit, her Axonify partner spotted it independently and followed up.
“That really just spoke to me because they’re not just doing stuff for you when you get ahold of them,” says Burke. “They’re actually taking the time and being intentional about managing the system on the back end for us to make sure that everything is running smoothly.”
Burke says that combination of expertise, responsiveness and proactive support has made Advantage Plus feel less like an outsourced service and more like an extension of the BankWest team.
“It’s just been a great partnership. Having her expertise to let us bounce things off of her—it’s been great.”
With that partnership in place, BankWest’s learning and development team can spend more time focusing on the work only they can do: creating meaningful learning experiences, supporting employees and continuing to build a culture where development is part of everyday work.
“I’m a firm believer in if you have a system that you need to use, use it to its max potential.”
Dr. Becky Burke, Chief of Philanthropy & Strategic Officer, BankWest
From assigned training to an everyday learning culture
BankWest set out to do more than increase course completions. The organization wanted to change the relationship employees had with learning.
Today, Axonify serves as a destination for learning, reinforcement, communication, recognition and development. Employees return regularly, seek out optional development, encourage their peers, recognize one another and—most importantly—retain more of what they learn.
For Burke, the philosophy behind the program is simple: “I’m a firm believer in if you have a system that you need to use, use it to its max potential.” BankWest has done exactly that, turning Axonify from a learning platform into an integral part of how its people learn, connect and grow.