Nationwide Building Society recognised a need to invest in colleagues to help them build their digital skills and confidence. Here, the Nationwide team tells us about their collaboration with another FutureDotNow member, digital skills provider iDEA, and the impact it had on employee upskilling.
1. The ‘problem’ and what were we trying to achieve
Internal and external insight supported the recognition of a digital skills gap. We needed to invest in colleagues to enable them to develop life skills as well as provide transferable skills that could be used in the workplace and beyond.
Investing in our colleagues helps them to stay relevant in today’s society and the ever-changing digital landscape. This investment will build their skills and confidence and can also be applied to how they engage with members through our own digital products and services, supporting our overall ambition to help members.
2. How we tackled it
Background
- We wanted to build our colleagues digital confidence; to support them in
having digital conversations with our members. - There was limited internal resource available to build bespoke training.
- Member-facing colleagues had limited time for taking part in training
The Plan
In the context of the above factors, we idenitifed iDEA as our skills delvery partner and developed a plan to test a new upskilling programme in two formats, with c.100 employees, in the following stages:
- Split into Group A and Group B
- Group A – provided with bespoke learning pathways
- Group B – given free reign of the iDEA learning platform
- Usage ensouraged through Teams, leader engagement and regular check-ins
- Success measured through colleague engagement and pre and post-learning surveys
The Benefits
The iDEA platform gave our colleagues the opportunity to:
- Upskill at their own pace
- Learn more about specific areas they’re interested in
- Develop additional Life Skills
- Add the accredited iDEA certificates to their CVs
The skills they gained allowed Nationwide to:
- Support our colleagues in having digital conversations with members.
- Empower our colleagues through improved digital confidence.
3. How it went & what we learnt
Key learnings:
- Leader engagement is key
- Time is always a challenge
- ‘Mandatory’ modules got the ball rolling
Colleague feedback:
“I really enjoyed completing the iDEA pilot. The biggest issue I faced was not having time to complete it.”
“Thoroughly enjoyed educating myself on the modules.”
“Generally, very good. Some modules were much more to my learning style but generally catered for all.”
4. The impact it had
How confident are you in understanding and having an awareness of wider digital capabilities e.g., Blockchain, cyber security, website creation, virtual reality, coding?
How confident are you in having Digital education conversations with our members about our digital channels (mobile app/internet bank)?
Spotlights tell the stories of FutureDotNow members who have worked together to deliver a workforce digital skills programme.
These are real world examples that give insight into how to build essential digital skills and how to overcome (or avoid) the potential barriers.