Feeding Your Mind

CUSTOMER SUCCESS STORY

A Culture Makeover

When Graham Blaxell—Manager of Learning Performance & Design—started working at flexigroup, he was committed to changing how the employees at the consumer finance company approached learning.

Under the leadership of the Head of Learning and Development, Graham and his learning colleagues started to redefine their learning strategy priorities. Before this shift, the focus of learning and development was predominately on regulatory training, and little emphasis was placed on career development. According to Graham, “When I came on board, there was a lot of enthusiasm for change—there was an understanding that as an organization, we needed to focus on more than required training.”

The regulatory requirements were crucial and necessary, but the organization needed more—Graham and his learning colleagues saw that and divided flexigroup’s learning priorities into three main groups:

  1. Required training—compliance and regulatory training
  2. Leadership development—succession planning and change management
  3. Career development—individuals taking charge of their own learning

The realignment was more significant than just policy changes and the purchase of learning solutions. For these priorities to become priorities of the employee, there first had to be a cultural change. flexigroup needed a vision for learning. It was already a challenge to get employees to engage and take ownership of their learning. And it was even more challenging to drive change and engagement without a goal that resonated.

The new leadership group unveiled “Feed your mind” as one of the key values of the organization which provided the impetus for change that was required. The leaders of learning drafted a vision and took it to all corners of the organization—it was crucial to get feedback from everyone. Once the input was implemented, “Feed your mind” became a reality.

“While it is important for us to be agile and quick to adapt, it’s also important to remember that unless you have a clear vision of where you want to get to and have the proper building blocks in place, you’ll never get to the cultural change.”

Graham Blaxell

Manager of Learning Performance & Design,
flexigroup.

Outcomes

Before flexigroup reprioritized their learning strategy, 97% of all employee learning was required, regulatory training. Within six months of the reprioritization:

45%

of employee learning was regulatory training.

55%

of employee learning was non-required—career advancement—learning.

As cultural change continues to evolve, flexigroup has started to see the benefits of a robust learning strategy and an engaged workforce. For example, some employees of flexigroup started an internal podcast where episodes feature colleagues who have improved their jobs by feeding their minds and taking ownership of their career development.

flexigroup’s roster of employees is now more engaged and see the value of learning. In return, flexigroup has a more effective and adaptive workforce.