Personnel Today Awards 2020: L&D Supplier Award shortlist

As we continue our countdown to the Personnel Today Awards on 26 November, we showcase the organisations shortlisted for the L&D Supplier of the Year Award. This award recognises innovating thinking, exceptional client service and value for money in supplying learning and development programmes.

H&H

H&H provides integrated L&D, internal communications and employee engagement services, which it believes creates more opportunities for learning to happen.

An example of its success is seen through its partnership with airline alliance Sky Team. It has connected more than 26,000 service agents with a powerful suite of digital learning materials in multiple languages and developed a bespoke learning programme that focused on customer service, called ‘Making Memorable Moments’.

The programme includes videos, role play, quizzes, reflection exercises and mini-challenges, which have captured the attention of airline employees through eye-catching designs and self-directed learning opportunities.

The company also has the exclusive UK rights for the PRINT insights tool, which uncovers what drives people and identifies actionable strategies to aid interaction. One client benefitting from this is East Riding of Yorkshire Council, which has used the tool to promote ‘best self’ behaviours to resonate better with the expectations of younger people. By the end of the 31 sessions, the 100+ leaders had built a bespoke action plan that they could use to apply their PRINT knowledge across a range of scenarios, with outstanding results.

It is also enriching the wider L&D community too, by accrediting more than 60-based L&D coaches in delivering PRINT to their own networks.

Learnerbly

Learnerbly is a curated L&D marketplace that connects employees with L&D suppliers.

Learners are provided with personal learning budgets and personal development plans that enable them to engage in self-directed learning, based on what they want to learn and how they learn best. The learners themselves purchase suppliers’ services through the platform.

Automated nudges via Slack remind managers to discuss development goals with employees and publicly celebrate their achievements. Content from internal and external providers is added, updated, refined and removed via community input.

Recent successes include providing free L&D support to employers with 20 or more staff on furlough – which received interest from more than 200 organisations within the first month – and developing a ‘First Time Leadership’ programme for banking platform Curve.

Over 95% of employees whose employers use Learnerbly activate accounts on the platform, gaining access to free content (40% of the platform), and affordable paid content (93% under £300). It has seen almost 100% client retention and more than 50% referrals from existing clients, and one client reported a 76% improvement in its employee engagement (personal growth) scores when comparing a cohort using Learnerbly to one without.

Client Born Social said in a recent renewal conversation: “Learnerbly is too valuable to us to not renew.”

Team Academy

Leadership and sales training supplier Team Academy worked alongside supermarket Aldi to deliver a training programme – named ‘Best Version of Us’ – aimed at embedding an industry-leading customer experience.

It needed to inspire 30,000 store operations colleagues to deliver the new Aldi customer service principles, known as CARE. Training needed to be memorable, inspiring and different to anything Aldi’s employees had ever experienced before.

Team Academy engaged with senior leader steering groups and colleague focus groups to develop the programme. These was complemented by information gained via its internal communications platform, which staff used to give feedback.

Regional managing directors, store operations directors, area managers and store managers took part in the one-day workshop so they could act as role models for the programme. A ‘Train the Trainer’ programme was also used to transform managers into trainers.

The interactive workshops featured quizzes, games, role-pay and group work, which Team Academy says was memorable for all involved.

In 2019, Aldi delivered record level customer satisfaction at 76.7%, a 4.78% uplift on the previous year, and customer complaints declined substantially.

The Resilience Development Company

Working with a global bank that had identified low resilience among the workforce – including resistance to change, fractured confidence and low levels of confidence and pride in the organisation – The Resilience Development Company delivered a Resilience Advantage programme to more than 800 staff over two years.

The programme involved developing 50 skills that cultivate the behaviours and habits that enable people to thrive in periods of change; creating two profiles exploring the attendees’ values, strengths and personal motivations; delivering a digital resource supporting the development of resilience; and providing team coaching workshops to develop resilience ‘champions’.

Over five phases, staff received a blend of coaching, facilitation, experiential exercises, challenges and additional resources to ensure development throughout the programme. Pre- and post-programme surveys were used to measure the impact it had had in terms of psychological safety, productivity, self-assessed resilience and engagement.

After two years, the bank saw a 5% increase in engagement, a 33% reduction in voluntary attrition, an 8% drop in absence and 80% of staff reporting  a long-term positive change in their behaviour.

The programme helped the client save £1.19 million in attrition costs and gain £806,000 in productivity benefits.

The bank’s chief operating officer said it has seen marked increase in employees reporting that they feel more able to deal with every day stresses, both in the workplace and in their personal lives, as well as a rise in productivity and collaboration.