Leading Hospitality Chain Elevates Frontline and Manager Training with MicroBuilder®

Red Roof is a leading economy hotel brand with over 700 franchised properties, supported by approximately 200 corporate team members. Headquartered in Ohio, the company focuses on delivering clean, comfortable stays and friendly service at an affordable price point.

The Training department is a lean team, led by the vice president of innovation, learning, development, and training, and the director of training, supported by three regional training managers, one instructional designer, and one training manager. This team develops training for both corporate staff and hundreds of franchised hotels, including new openings and ownership transitions.

Red Roof’s training team had several key objectives:

• Increase LMS engagement. With a third-party LMS in place, the team set a goal of at least 1,000 active learners per month across hotels and corporate staff. They wanted ongoing development, not just annual compliance checkboxes.
  
  
• Support major change and new systems. Red Roof was rolling out a new generation of its HotelKey PMS and a fully revamped manager training program. Existing learning relied on outdated manuals and static PowerPoint decks, leading to slow progress and a drop-off before certification.
  
  
• Engage a younger, busy frontline audience. Front desk teams needed short, modern, easy-to-consume training they could complete between guest interactions rather than long reading assignments.
  
  
• Increase production capacity without adding headcount. Manual recording and traditional tools meant courses took weeks to build. The single instructional designer had limited time to learn new, complex software.

• ‍Ensure seamless LMS integration. Any new solution had to integrate with their LMS to ensure completions and reporting remained reliable.

Building on an existing relationship with ELB Learning®, Red Roof selected MicroBuilder® as its rapid authoring tool. The tool selection was a strategic choice because it supported:

1. Faster, AI-supported authoring. MicroBuilder enabled the instructional designer to move from weeks of development per course to much shorter timelines. AI support helped with structure, narration, and interactions so the team could meet tight rollout schedules for PMS updates and manager training.
   
   
2. Modern, multimodal learning. Long, text-heavy content was transformed into mixed media modules that combined:

• Short reading segments.
• Videos and avatar-led explanations.
• Quizzes and knowledge checks to reinforce learning.

For manager training, the team replaced large portions of “textbook” content with MicroBuilder-based modules designed for better pacing and completion.

3. Simplified learner experience. By embedding documents, infographics, and other assets directly into MicroBuilder courses, Red Roof reduced the number of separate LMS items. Learners now see fewer clicks and a clearer path through each course, which feels more achievable for busy hotel teams.
   
   
4. Ready for multilingual training. The team plans to use MicroBuilder’s translation capabilities to deliver key courses in Spanish, Hindi, and Gujarati for housekeeping and maintenance staff.

‍

While still in the process of migrating older courses, Red Roof is already seeing a strong impact:

• Higher content output with a small team. The sole instructional designer can now “kick out” new training much faster, and the director of training no longer needs to pause or abandon builds when new priorities appear.
  
• More engaging learner experience. Learners report that MicroBuilder-based courses feel easier and faster to complete, with more variety than static slides or long reading assignments. The updated look and feel aligns with modern digital experiences and the external training they already know.
  
• Improved manager training completion. After streamlining the manager program and shifting content to MicroBuilder, completion rates have improved, and managers are less likely to drop off before certification.
• ‍LMS usage aligned to new content. Monthly KPI reviews show LMS usage increases when new MicroBuilder training is launched and promoted. Once learners log in and see that courses are shorter, more visual, and more interactive, they are more willing to return.

‍

Future

Looking ahead, Red Roof plans to deepen its use of MicroBuilder by systematically updating legacy training and rebuilding it in MicroBuilder so the learner experience is consistent across the LMS. Red Roof also plans to design targeted refresher modules to address specific performance needs, such as cleaning standards when scores drop, which will be a key focus area.