Aaron Price, Digital Education Manager for Nationwide tells how the building society is working with its learning partner, iDEA, to build the digital capability and confidence of its colleagues.
“At Nationwide, we are passionate about developing the Essential Digital Skills and confidence of our colleagues. It’s core to our values that colleagues across our customer-facing channels can talk confidently about digital products and help customers do things digitally, such as using our app or online banking.
“But the challenge we face is that we have limited internal expertise when it comes to building the bespoke training needed. We also know colleagues, and especially those in branches, have very limited time for training. We need something they can dip in and out of and which covers a lot of broad subjects.
“Collaborating with a learning partner is definitely right for us at the moment. And we’re extremely grateful to FutureDotNow for introducing us to our partner.”
“iDEA is an independent charity that offers a huge range of online modules on different digital subjects, which are very accessible, gamified and fun to complete.
“For our pilot Essential Digital Skills programme, we split around 100 branch colleagues into two groups. Group A was told they needed to complete eight mandatory digital skills modules before they could explore all the other modules. And Group B was given a free rein from the beginning.
“What we learnt from this test was those who were asked to do the mandatory modules were more likely to be engaged with the training and go on to do more modules. Overall, 2,500 iDEA modules were completed during the pilot, which averages at 25 per person.
“Following the iDEA pilot, we did see a significant increase in colleagues’ digital confidence and capability. We also heard from branch managers that customers were having better digital conversations with colleagues. And senior leaders at Nationwide started to become more aware of our work.
“We’re extremely grateful to FutureDotNow for introducing us to our learning partner, who have been excellent.”
“Now, following the pilot, and after learning from other members of FutureDotNow, we’ve moved to the next stage of our training programme. This involves our colleagues answering a survey which asks them how confident they are about completing the 20 work tasks in the Essential Digital Skills Framework, as well as some more specific ones relevant to Nationwide.
“Depending on the responses we get, we direct people to the most appropriate learning modules for them. This works really well for us, because it means our time-poor colleagues in branches can focus on the skills they need to and want to develop, rather than skills they may already be proficient at.”
What’s your advice to others?
- Invest time to form a strong collaborative relationship with your learning partner so they can support your organisation more effectively.
- Run a pilot programme to test if your training will help you meet the objectives you’re aiming to achieve.
- Consider giving colleagues mandatory training modules to complete to get the ball rolling and encourage independent learning.
- When asking colleagues about their digital skills, focus on levels of confidence, not whether they can do or not do a task.
How has FutureDotNow supported you?
- Introduced Nationwide to its learning partner, iDEA, which helped to shape the design of our training programme.
- Reports from FutureDotNow have helped Nationwide understand the digital skills challenge we’re facing and engage senior leaders with the issue.
- FutureDotNow membership and networking events have helped Nationwide learn from other organisations and increase our profile in this space.
- Nationwide’s survey for colleagues which asks them about their digital confidence and capability is heavily influenced by the 20 work tasks outlined in the Essential Digital Skills Framework.
Learning partner is just one of the training models used by FutureDotNow coalition members to digitally upskill the workforce. To see a breakdown of other models and hear from the companies that use them, click below.