NCDEX Cultivates a Competitive Learning Culture with Percipio

Agriculture is critical to India's economy. Often called the backbone of India, the agricultural sector employs over 60% of the population and contributes about 17% to the country's total GDP.

NCDEX is India's leading agricultural commodity exchange, offering services across the post- harvest value chain and uplifting farmers and agricultural centers by providing a platform that connects the primary producer to the commodity exchange.

While NCDEX offers a wide range of products that bring buyers and sellers together through an innovative electronic trading platform, they also engage in research, training, and education to build awareness about the agricultural commodities market through the NCDEX Institute of Commodity Markets and Research.

Technology is a critical component of NCDEXs competitive strategy. Leaders at NCDEX understand that change is the only thing you can expect from the world, a lesson many industries have recently realized due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues. To remain competitive, NCDEX knows they need employees with top skills, and by investing in technology to continually train and upskill their people, they stay ahead of the curve.

It's clear to the international business community that no generation will be free from change and world-altering crises. So, staying secure and keeping your business and people perpetually alert and future-proof is the cost of success in the modern era.

Leaders at NCDEX embrace flexibility because just as remote work is not going away anytime soon, providing alternatives to instructor-led sessions is more important than ever. Genuinely engaging your learners means providing flexible learning they can engage in at their own pace.

To empower anywhere, anytime learning and a broader collaborative platform, NCDEX turned to Skillsoft and formalized the journey to flexibility with the development of the NCDEX Academy. The Academy deals with constant change by using life-long learning philosophies like consistent upskilling and reskilling to ensure future readiness. This strategy encompasses all employees, from new hires to experienced professionals.

"We believe learning goals are best set by learners themselves." – Aditi Mukherjee Executive Vice President & Head Human Resources

The learning and development team used learning journeys in Percipio to develop NCDEX Academy. NCDEX subscribed to the Business Advanced collection and content based on suggestions from NCDEX was hand selected by a Skillsoft Customer Success Manager. NCDEX then further filtered the recommendations to suit their specific requirements.

Skillsoft Percipio content helped NCDEX facilitate individual development plans for employees and tools to support personal development and competency.

Testimonial #1

The NCDEX academy is all in one solution providing courses ranging from technical domain to personal skill. I found the personal domain development courses really interesting as well as the self-management skills, social skills, emotional intelligence, and personality skills. Reliable sources are not easily accessible on internet, but the NCDEX academy courses provide a learning opportunity in an organised manner through a user friendly platform with self-paced and easy to understand courses to focus on different dimensions of self along with the technical skills to stay up to date - Purusharth Pratap Singh

NCDEX Group Academy provides a framework that handles all aspects of training. With such a powerful tool, the transition needed to be gradual. To help the project gain momentum and make the learning journey fun, the HR team developed the Learning Premier League (LPL). The LPL was designed to tap into the passion Indian culture has for the game of Cricket.

Each department organized several employees into a learning team, with one learning champion selected to encourage, assist, and lead their group through the learning journey. Each team was encouraged to create a cricket-style squad, and the design department created logos for each team. HR then created buzz around the launch of this event via various strategies such as office posters and reminder emails for one month.

Before the launch of LPL, the user base was around 305; after the league’s launch, usage surged. The program ran for 21 days. At the end of each day, the L&D team sent around a report with points calculated for each group. The report featured a table displaying each team’s accumulated points, and winners and trophies were awarded.

Testimonial #2

It has been a great experience learning on our newly launched NCDEX Group Academy. This learning platform consists of numerous courses which enhance the essence of oneself personally & professionally. Customized modules in NCDEX Group Academy provides a startling platform to every individual who believes in growth – Satyam Panwar

The LPL was just one skill-specific engagement NCDEX used to engage learners. During the LPL, learners were highly engaged and competitive. However, after the activation ended, the L&D team noticed that there was a dip in the number of users logging into the Academy.

Then the team rolled out a new skill-specific engagement, called Excel-Lent, to reclaim their engagement levels to upskill their learners in MS Excel. This time, instead of bite-sized videos, daily course content around MS Excel was shared. Every day one MS Excel learning video is launched and included with it is a proficiency assessment to accomplish after the lesson. Once learners complete the evaluation, they automatically move to the next course. The L&D team has seen good traction and high engagement. While these campaigns are skill specific to engage learners, the individual development plan journeys are also still a large part of the L&D initiative.

NCDEX Group Academy supported active engagement and meaningful connections between segments of the course, ease of communication, and availability of content, which helped increase the learning curve. Through continuous engagement, employees have earned 770 badges by completing 1073 courses in the span of the last six months. Unique titles accessed over the varied categories stand at 880. In addition, NCDEX Group academy boosted learning hours by +200% over last year.

For NCDEX, the most exciting benefit of the Academy was the possibility of touching base with every employee across the organization. In the early stages of the initiative the Learning & Development team received excellent feedback from team members, highlighting the richness of e-learning content available in Percipio. This also boosted interest in rolling out individual development plans and training, as soon as next year, which will let learner’s customize training and take the courses they need to succeed.

NCDEX learned that learning consistency is possible only through sustained efforts. An approach with clear incentives always gets the best results out of any initiative. Also, they learned that attention spans are short, and bite-sized learning works to engage learners effectively.

Testimonial #4

This is really a great opportunity for budding managers to learn. The platform has courses about Professional skills to mental well-being. I wanted to learn Data visualization and with this platform I can learn without hassle. Next, I would like to learn about Product Management, and with Academy, I can- Sai Jitendra

The objective of the Academy was to create and drive a robust learning culture within the organization. The success of the Academy is seen in learning hours logged, achievement of individual development plans, and employee feedback. In addition, the L&D team takes immense satisfaction in the positive feedback left by various internal stakeholders

Learners have experienced authentic digital learning from the comfort of their homes. They can watch videos, read books, listen to audiobooks, and consume bite-sized learning on their laptops or their smartphones. By undertaking courses in customer service, the team has a renewed focus and enhanced competencies to deliver on customer expectations.

Though there is still much to achieve in the coming months, NCDEX is confident that Academy will help address evolving business challenges through learning.