Better Together: How Deel Engage + OpenSesame Connect Learning to Performance

Learning and development programs have become a major priority for growing companies. But for many organizations, learning still happens in disconnected systems that sit outside employees’ day-to-day work.

That disconnect creates challenges for both HR teams and managers. Training gets assigned manually, learning goals become separated from business objectives, and employees often struggle to engage with multiple platforms and workflows.

Deel Engage and OpenSesame are working to change that.

Alex De Jesse, Solutions Engineer at Deel, spoke with Colin Huff, Strategic Partner Manager at OpenSesame, about how integrated learning and performance systems are helping organizations simplify employee development, personalize employee development, and make learning more impactful across global teams.

Here are some key takeaways from the conversation.

Watch the full webinar video.

Takeaway #1: Learning programs fail when they’re disconnected from everyday work

One of the biggest reasons learning programs struggle to drive real impact is that they operate separately from performance management and day-to-day workflows.

According to Colin, traditional learning systems often function as isolated platforms where HR teams manually assign training while managers have little visibility into what employees are actually learning.

“Most learning programs fail because they're disconnected from real work,” Colin explained. “The value gets diluted when learning is separate from performance, reviews, managers, and larger business objectives.”

That separation between learning and real work creates friction for everyone involved. Employees have to navigate multiple systems, managers lack context around assigned training, and HR teams spend significant time manually managing learning workflows.

The Deel Engage and OpenSesame integration helps solve this by embedding learning directly into the employee experience. Instead of existing in a separate platform, learning and development become connected to goals, performance conversations, role changes, and broader business objectives.

That integration helps organizations move learning out of isolation and into the flow of work itself.

Discover more: Introducing Engage: Your All-in-One Place for Talent Development.

Takeaway #2: Learning only drives impact when it’s connected to performance

Completing a course alone doesn’t necessarily change employee behavior or improve outcomes.

As Colin explained during the discussion, learning becomes more effective when it reinforces accountability, expectations, and business goals in a meaningful way.

“Behavior doesn’t change because somebody completed a course,” he said. “It changes when learning reinforces expectations, accountability, and goals tied to the business.”

The integration between OpenSesame and Deel Engage allows organizations to automatically connect learning and development opportunities to real workplace events and performance conversations.

For example, when an employee changes roles, locations, or responsibilities, relevant learning paths can automatically be assigned based on those updates. Managers can also identify skill gaps during performance reviews and recommend personalized learning paths directly within Engage.

That context makes learning feel far more relevant and actionable for employees while giving managers and HR teams clearer visibility into development progress.

See: AI in Learning and Development: 8 Ways to Improve Employees' Skills

Takeaway #3: Consolidation is becoming a major priority for HR teams

Many organizations today are actively trying to reduce disconnected systems across HR, learning, and performance management, and prioritizing integrated ecosystems over adding yet another standalone platform to their tech stack.

“Organizations aren’t asking for another platform,” Colin noted. “Consolidation is actually one of the biggest things that we're seeing in the industry today, where organizations are asking for something to cut down the number of vendors that they have. To think about their entire ecosystem and how data can be shared across systems.”

That shift is driving more demand for solutions that consolidate learning, performance management, employee engagement, and development planning into a single experience.

Instead of juggling multiple vendors and workflows, HR leaders want systems where data flows seamlessly across the organization and where employees and managers can access everything in one place.

The OpenSesame and Deel Engage integration reflects the growing demand for connected learning and talent development ecosystems.

Takeaway #4: Personalized learning matters more for distributed global teams

Global organizations face an additional layer of complexity when it comes to learning and development.

Training needs vary across countries, compliance requirements differ by region, and distributed teams often need localized content that still maintains organizational consistency.

OpenSesame addresses this challenge by offering course translations in more than 75 languages, helping organizations deliver localized learning experiences without creating additional operational overhead.

As Colin explained, the goal is to create “local relevance without adding complexity.”

That becomes especially valuable for distributed teams where organizations need scalable ways to support employees across multiple regions while maintaining consistency in learning standards and compliance training.

Combined with Deel Engage, organizations can automatically assign region-specific or role-specific learning content while keeping everything centralized within the same platform.

Find out how to integrate learning and performance management for driving business results.

Takeaway #5: The future of learning is more personalized and embedded

Learning platforms are evolving far beyond simple content libraries. Instead of assigning generic training across entire teams, organizations increasingly want more personalized development experiences tied to individual employee goals, performance, and skill gaps.

“If you’re managing a team of ten folks, not everybody is going to have the same gaps,” Colin pointed out. “You have to be able to personalize learning and add context to that. This doesn't mean throwing a manual and generic courses at your entire team, but thinking about the whole human and their personal development plan.”

That shift is changing how organizations think about enablement and employee growth. Managers need better tools to guide development conversations, HR teams need visibility into learning outcomes, and employees expect training to feel relevant to their actual roles and career paths.

At the same time, organizations still want flexibility. Some learning content needs to be custom-built internally, while other training can come directly from ready-made course libraries. “It is important for organizations to be able to build their own content, proprietary content, in-house, which can now be done at scale with Deel Engage,” Colin said.

Together, Deel Engage and OpenSesame allow companies to combine internally created learning content in Deel Engage with OpenSesame's extensive catalog of professional development, compliance, and skills-based learning content.

Find out how to create a skills matrix for your teams in 9 steps.

The main takeaway: connect learning, performance, and development in one place

Across the board, learning is becoming more connected to performance, employee development, and day-to-day work rather than existing as a separate experience managed across disconnected systems.

Together, Deel Engage and OpenSesame help companies create a more connected learning experience by combining performance management, skills development, compliance training, and employee engagement in one unified platform.

Book a demo to find out more.