Five years ago, Sage’s relationship with Cornerstone was transactional. Today, it’s a co‑created partnership that has simplified the Sage colleagues’ learning experience. By extending Cornerstone beyond its out‑of‑the‑box design, we built a Persona‑Based Learning Experience (PBLE) that delivers relevant learning to every colleague—in just a few clicks. A pivotal contributor to this outcome was Dave Hope, Learning Experience Technologist at Sage, whose hands‑on engineering and solution design converted a bold idea into a robust, scalable capability.
The challenge: Relevance at scale for a diverse workforce
Sage is a global organization with colleagues across 40+ functions and 20+ countries. Initially, Cornerstone’s standard configuration couldn’t fully support the depth of personalization we needed. Colleagues struggled to find the right learning fast, and the experience risked becoming a one‑size‑fits‑none journey. We needed to surface content by role, function, country, tenure, and manager status—reliably and at speed. These were the problems we were on a mission to solve.
“Cornerstone - rebranded at Sage as Sage Learning, out of the box, lacks the ability to deliver personalized learning based on a colleague’s role, location, and function—meaning colleagues can’t find relevant learning quickly and easily, in three clicks or less.”, says Diane Gaa, Director of Learning Experience, Design and Technology at Sage.
The turning point: From “what’s not possible” to “how might we?”
“Instead of replacing technology, we reframed the problem. The team anchored on a simple ask: Let’s focus on what Cornerstone can do for us, not what it is designed to do.”, says Diane Gaa.
That mindset shifted the conversation from limitations to design possibilities—and became the operating principle for the project and the partnership. In parallel, the relationship with Cornerstone matured from vendor to co‑designer—listening to feedback, prioritizing the right enhancements, and iterating together toward outcomes that fit Sage’s needs.
The solution: Persona‑Based Learning Experience (PBLE)
As a design principle, Sage uses HRIS data (from Sage People) to drive conditional experiences in Cornerstone—so each colleague lands on content that fits their persona (e.g., new starter, seasoned learner, newly promoted manager or manager advancing skills), function, region, and stage in their journey. How we made it work inside Cornerstone.
- Custom data pipeline: Duplicated key HRIS attributes into 24 Cornerstone custom fields via the Edge feed, enabling conditional rendering on home and custom pages—without heavy middleware or new APIs. Fields include Employer, Function, Country, Band, Tenure, and more.
- Experience layer: Using HTML/CSS/JavaScript, we built rule‑based components to tailor what each persona sees—curated learning, mandatory training, academy content, nudges, and resources—in three clicks or fewer.
- Experience strategy alignment: PBLE underpins our L&D strategy to deliver the right learning at the right time, reducing friction and making growth feel personal.
Putting the design in action
The PBLE moved from concept deck to production reality thanks to Dave Hope. Dave designed the custom‑field approach, engineered the conditional display logic, and partnered across IT and Cornerstone to operationalize the feed and front‑end changes—the exact “outside‑the‑box” execution this strategy required.
Results
Sage Learning satisfaction. NPS +75 and CSAT 93.7%, indicating strong satisfaction with the Sage Learning experience.
- Personas supported: New joiners, newly promoted managers, developing managers, self‑developers, and function‑specific paths (e.g., Marketing, Sales, Product, Tech, People).
- Data signals: Manager status, function/role family, country/region, tenure, job band, and other HRIS attributes mapped to Cornerstone custom fields.
- Experience promise: Relevant learning in three clicks or less, delivered via a single, scrollable page that updates automatically as data changes.
What we learned
- Constraints can be creative catalysts: Working with Cornerstone’s architecture—rather than waiting on new features—accelerated time to value.
- Partnership beats procurement: Trust compounded as both teams listened and iterated, turning feedback into platform and experience improvements.
- Data is design: HRIS attributes, thoughtfully mapped, became the backbone of the front‑end experience.
Looking ahead
With PBLE as a foundation, we’re exploring language preferences – having implemented French and in scope for 2026, Spanish and German experiences. New additions released in Fall of 2025 of PBLE customized for Sales roles —continuing to remove friction and personalize growth for every colleague.
