The Worldmark Academy is a global eLearning initiative, bringing learning and development to employees in Europe, Asia and the Americas.

Faced with rapid growth on three continents, Worldmark needed to improve individual performance and identify future leaders. However, the old ways of delivering training would no longer be sufficient, and a new type of learning culture was needed.

This the story explains how this multiple award winning Academy met these needs and why Worldmark is one of TM’s Top Deck learning organisations in the 2014 TM Benchmark.

Worldmark International has grown rapidly from a single site UK organisation into a global one with 12 manufacturing sites and six Design Centres. The product range and processes are continually expanding but without increased investment in people, growth will inevitably stall.  Historically little investment had been made in training and development of their people and learning Interventions were not part of a coherent long term development plan.

The need to improve individual performance and identifying future leaders meant that the old ways of delivering training would no longer be sufficient, a new type of learning culture was needed.

The solution

The Academy was introduced to develop that learning culture in the business, to bring learning to all parts of the organisation and to provide opportunities for personal development for everyone. The aim of the academy was clear: to retain staff, improve performance in the workplace, change behaviour linked to company values, identify future leaders and provide a consistent approach to management development.

The Worldmark Academy has now made rapid inroads in to aligning learning to the needs of employees and to the corporate values and key goals.

Lessons Learned:

• 1: If virtual and face-to-face learning are integrated then this blend will ensure that theory and practice are combined. These always give the best learning opportunities
• 2: It is a good idea to run an initial pilot, which will test the technology and help identify issues before the launch
• 3: Learning initiatives, when clearly aligned to the organisation’s values and key goals, will help embed these same values and goals into the culture of the organisation
• 4: A process of listening to those within the organisation, performance appraisals, customer audits, employee surveys will highlight area for business improvement and associated training needs
• 5: This process is essential to the understanding of business outcomes that need to be addressed
• 6: It is advisable that the learning programme is driven by a combination of HR and a senior business leader who understands the power of learning to deliver critical business outcomes
• 7: Make sure that your learning and talent strategy are seamlessly integrated.  This will positively impact on staff retention and staff working to their full potential
• 8: Provide as many opportunities as possible for colleague to gather virtually or face-to-face so peers can learn from each other collectively
• 9: Success of engagement depends on a mix of  technology, regular innovation and max flexibility
• 10: The use of badges and other reward systems will help drive completion and recognition of achievements

This is the story of how the award winning Academy met these needs, and then some more!

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By Laura Overton, Towards Maturity

This case study has been independently investigated and developed by Towards Maturity as part of our Good practice Partnership with e.Learning Age and the e.Learning Awards. This article was first published in Training Journal.