CSPS Digital Academy/CSPS Digital Accelerator/Team 3 - CRA

Join the team from 2:30-3:30 PM (ET) in their breakout room for a live demo and Q&A. Click here to join the room or call in (audio only)   [437-703-4643,,20317509#]   Phone conference ID: 203 175 09#

Welcome to the CRA Learning Zone

Our team

We at the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) are a workforce of 47,000 employees who continuously work to improve our knowledge and skills to serve our taxpayers effectively and accurately. The Learning Leadership Division (LLD) at the Agency put together a team that spans regions, branches and skills to find a way to make learning content easily accessible and efficient, as well as to help the division gather data for the continuous journey of learning through digital transformation. Let’s meet the team!

Human Resources Branch:

• Sonia Côté

• Ann Marie Hume

• Stephen Virgin

• Natalie Waples

• Bernard-Joseph Burelle  

• Helen Daniels  

• Shannon Fitzpatrick

• Geneviève Fournier

• Gus Poulopoulous

• Kaide Van

• Cynthia Vokey

Information Technology Branch:

• Robert Christian  

• Dana Al-Rifai  

Assessment, Benefit, and Service Branch:

• Yvette Babineau-Brando

• Melanie Corkum

Appeals Branch:

• Jolyne Pepe  

Public Affairs Branch:

• Jessica MacQueen

We have a variety of roles on the team. Executives help us break down silos and find resources, allowing the team to experiment with an iterative, collaborative approach to problem solving. Team members focused on developing the solution itself are professionals in learning, IT, research, design, and programs. They are supported by people who facilitate access to users for testing and provide ongoing feedback.  

At the end of the day, we are all open-minded people who are eager to embrace the new ways of developing solutions that the Digital Accelerator promotes.

Our problem

In this digital age, we are generating a large amount of information and learning content. At the CRA, we are no exception.

Last year, we did research to gain more insights from our employees and learners on their experiences. We learned that they had a difficult time finding the learning content they needed.

At the CRA, we encourage continuous learning and growth. When finding learning is like walking through a jungle without a compass or map, it creates a lonely, time-consuming and frustrating experience.  

We aim to digitize, humanize and simplify the learning experience so that employees can grow professionally. The question we tried to answer is “How might we facilitate timely access to relevant learning for all CRA employees?”.

Our journey towards a solution

Before the Accelerator, we imagined a solution where all learning would be housed in one place, with our team as the gatekeepers for all of this learning.  

Through the Accelerator workshops, boot camps and activities, we concluded that it was okay if learning content was hosted in multiple locations. We just had to find a way to bring learners and learning together.  

Through the Digital Accelerator, our perspectives and our ways of working together have evolved. It’s not that the problem itself changed, but we changed our problem focus after we heard from users and conducted more research. We also realized that we needed to restrict ourselves to what we can actually influence and what would be the most effective for the majority of people.

Our solution

Our solution is The Learning Zone, a platform that allows content- creators to maintain ownership while, at the same time, enabling them to make their content available Agency-wide.

Our solution is the result of user feedback and iteration. It begins with enabling employees to have a specific place to go to search for learning content and not just for specific courses. It facilitates the search for content by enabling the learner to use filters to refine their search results. This allows the learner to group the content in a way that works for them.

Why did we choose this as our solution? Because we need a simple approach to get the learning community from all branches to help us find and give feedback on quality content that will continue our journey of digital transformation and learning.  

Our growth journey

The Digital Accelerator program has been exactly that… a journey. We want to share some important lessons and experiences we gained:

“This has been a challenging process of letting go of assumptions, forcing myself to work with new people in new ways, and lots of trying things out that I've never done before. I've been frequently uncomfortable, but that is the sign of a good learning program, and the Digital Accelerator team has provided invaluable support and structure.”

“I have learned new techniques and processes that I intend to use when I return to my job.”

“I experienced a wide range of emotions, from highs, to lows and everything in-between including confusion, clarity, aha moments, laughter, anxiety and of course pride!”

“We developed a solution at super fast speed fast! It is amazing what can happen in this type of environment.”

“This program helps learners learn the way they learn, it's uncomfortable, people try to fall into their "old" behaviors, but the program pushes you to live the theory behind it and before you even know it, you're prototyping and iterating based on feedback and user input.”