Providing pension peace of mind

Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) serves Ontario, Canada’s hospital and community-based healthcare sector, managing over $112 billion in assets for 460,000 nurses, medical technicians, and other healthcare workers. It’s also a perfect example of how you can accomplish great things with ServiceNow University.

Meet Dan Machnik

Dan is the Senior Manager at HOOPP who manages the ServiceNow platform as well as the core ServiceNow development team. From the moment HOOPP brought in ServiceNow to replace its existing ticketing system, Dan and his team have overseen a highly successful program to leverage the solutions across the entire HOOPP organization. And ServiceNow training has played a major role in that success.

“From the outset, we could see how valuable the platform could be. What we needed was the knowledge to unlock that value, and that’s what ServiceNow training has given us,” says Dan. “We’ve gone from a small initial core team working with a partner to a distributed team of nearly 50 developers, including almost 40 people based in various business units. ServiceNow is ubiquitous across HOOPP—nearly every week we have another business group that wants to come onto the platform. It’s become one of our key platforms for application development at HOOPP.”

ServiceNow University is the foundation for everything Dan’s team does

Dan explains, “ServiceNow training gives us the confidence to take on new opportunities. The first thing we do when we’re starting out on a new ServiceNow project is to send our people to the appropriate courses. We know we’re getting the right information from the horse’s mouth—directly from ServiceNow experts. And it’s the latest and greatest information because ServiceNow updates the courses for every release. ServiceNow training helps us get going faster, make the right development decisions, and deliver great results for our business.

“Here’s the bottom line. We’re confident, and our business has confidence in us. That trust is one of the key reasons we’ve been able to grow the platform so quickly.”

Scaling up: a distributed development team

It’s not just Dan’s core team that benefits from ServiceNow training. It’s empowering developers across HOOPP’s business.

“I’m constantly amazed by all the great ideas people have. We don’t want to let those opportunities go to waste. So, we’ve set up a Center of Innovation and Excellence to support these people and let them develop on the platform,” says Dan. “The first thing we do is send them to ServiceNow Fundamentals and development training. It really gives them the skills they need to build applications under our guidance. We now have about 40 developers in various business units who can develop on the platform. It’s a hugely successful model, and it’s absolutely key to scaling ServiceNow across HOOPP.”

Growing careers

Not only has ServiceNow training helped HOOPP grow the platform, but it’s also helped the people involved build their careers. According to Dan, “For everyone involved—both our core team and our distributed developers—there are huge personal benefits. I’ve seen administrators, junior developers, and citizen developers really grow their reputations. If you have the enthusiasm, ServiceNow University gives you the skills you need to deliver great ServiceNow solutions and open up new career opportunities. I know it’s helped my career. When HOOPP first brought in ServiceNow, I was an individual contributor at our service desk. Today, I get to look after a great ServiceNow team.”