Article: When learning became social

Training & Development

When learning became social

Jardine Lloyd Thompson won the Best in Technology and Learning Award at the 2013 L&D Leadership League Awards
When learning became social
 

The idea of MOOC is something that L&D managers of other organizations can use since it has many advantages such as unlimited participation, open access via the web and an interactive forum

 

JLT India Pvt. Ltd. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group, one of world’s leading global insurance broking, employee benefits and consultancy firm. It was first set up in May 2007 as a Global Shared Services Centre for the Group, which offers access to local talent and expertise in order to improve cost and operational efficiency. The company has operations in insurance, reinsurance and employee benefits related advice, brokerages and associated services. The JLT Group has offices in 39 territories with 9,000 employees worldwide and presence in 135 countries. The India office is the second largest office for the Group and supports employee benefits and risk & insurance activities of the Group.

JLT was planning to cross the 1,000+ employee mark and scale its operations. As the company expanded its offshore network, there was a need to fill the insurance knowledge gap that existed in the company as the pace of offshoring is directly proportional to the competence level of employees. There was an urgent need to increase the professional competence and knowledge of its employees and also enhance India’s positioning as a Centre of Excellence .The quality of the output was also directly linked to the knowledge level of its employees.

Professional Insurance certifications from Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) & Pensions Management Institute (PMI) based in the UK were chosen as partners to acquire this body of knowledge. The company chose to launch a social learning campaign since the average age of the employees in the organization was in the mid 20’s and were already used to the idea of engaging in social networks and self-learning through videos.

The L&D Leaders got the business buy-in by finding concrete results through a survey, which proved that peer-to-peer learning and social as the preferred modes of learning. The cost-to-benefit ratio was also a strong factor that influenced the decision. Use of a virtual learning community on the enterprise social network (Chatter from salesforce.com), peer to peer sharing of information, tweet-chat like sessions to engage & build exam readiness, game mechanics to improve participation rates & weekly off-line meets were all mechanics used in this social learning blend. The practice resulted in an overall success rate of 83 per cent in 2013 (Global success rates being 77 per cent). Over 102 employees achieved exam success in both CII & PMI qualifications.

It helped to reinforce social learning as a key JLT value and help in the self-development of the employees. It also demonstrated the professional competence of India employees to the JLT Group globally.

The company is now planning to create a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on various modules and extend the social networking platform Chatter to link with CII website, thus announcing updated news, insights and sharing training materials. It is also aiming to increase the pool of social learning evangelists & content anchors within the organization for better knowledge management. Signature track MOOCs have also been added to the educational assist policy of the organization and employees can spend upto Rs 50,000 per annum for enrolling in MOOCs of their choice.

The idea of MOOC is something that L&D managers of other organizations can use since it has many advantages such as unlimited participation, open access via the web and an interactive forum.

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Topics: Training & Development, #BestPractices

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