One Size Does Not Fit All

Building an Ecosystem for Personalized Learning

Some days it feels overwhelming to realize that everything the learning technology team does at Citi impacts 300,000 people.

300,000 people are looking for information. 300,000 need to stay current. 300,000 voices, ideas, ambitions. It’s a responsibility the team takes seriously. When you have to care for so many, how could they go from that vast number to create personal learning journeys that speak to individuals?

That’s precisely the challenge the team tackled. They set out to build a scalable platform that not only gave 300,000 people access to content but also nurtured the unique needs of each employee while fitting into the reimagined Citi learning ecosystem.

The task was daunting but was achievable once specific requirements were documented. The reimagined learning environment would need to:

• Improve system performance and availability
• Enable employees to learn anywhere
• Offer content curation that could suit the needs of employees across cultures, languages and functions
• Adapt to all different learning styles – auditory, visual and written
• Provide learning within the context of work
• Designed for interoperability – ability to plug and play tech and initiatives

The mission was clear, the tasks complex. It took 18 months of scoping testing and scaling, but today Citi employees have a learning experience that allows them to access learning from anywhere. It’s no longer necessary to be on the Citi network to take training. External availability and a mobile version encourage employees to feed the impulse to learn “in the moment,” whether that’s during their commute, on the couch, or at the office.

Through integration with content libraries, managers can curate content on behalf of their team. Citi has also built out a home-grown reporting solution that allows managers to easily see the learning that is being consumed by their team. Early reports are surfacing clear patterns of need across the organization that they can build upon, and this is something that Citi will continue to work towards.

All of the steps they took to build an ecosystem have bolstered a budding culture of learning where learners proactively seek the content that they need to thrive. The upgrade and the re-envisioned learning ecosystem are helping Citi to change the perspective of learning within the organization.