Development of people is a key priority for Tesco, the UK's largest supermarket. From specialist training through to international leadership development programmes, the Tesco Academy is recognised as a great developer of skills, ensuring that all Tesco employees have opportunities develop their careers.
Now Tesco’s new virtual learning portal - Academy Online - is set to become a key destination for learning and development activity across the business. And the company is using Mohive eLPS internally, to produce compelling e-learning content and help deliver a great learning experience.
Growing appetite for online learning
According to Mark Roberts, a senior project manager within the Academy team, the appetite for learning on-line is on the increase across the Tesco workforce. "Our people are getting excited by e-learning and rightly so. Moreover, course creators within the business can sense this enthusiasm and are excited about delivering content in formats that are clearly in demand: they want to rise to the challenge.”
"People are getting excited by e-learning. Course creators can sense this enthusiasm and are excited about delivering content."
“Listening to staff is key to helping us understand what is working and where we should make changes,” continues Mark. “Over the last few years we have increasingly heard that people were learning in different ways outside of work; using technology and moving to a 'just in time' approach to gaining knowledge. Staff were looking for Tesco to broaden its approach to learning and development in response to this, so the 'access to learning' project was born and one of the deliverables is Academy Online – a new online portal for staff in the business.”
“One of the first requirements we focused on for the Academy was the ability to create and roll-out our own e-learning content. As a consequence, finding the right authoring solution was an early priority. Tesco is highly successful in creating its own materials, and we are recognised for the quality of training and development we can offer our people. With the right solutions, direction and support, we can extend this internal e-learning development” says Mark.
Creating compelling content
“We’ve looked at a number of authoring products over the past 12 months and have chosen to use Mohive to support our internal content creation. We like the way that content can be configured before it is made available to others. This feature helps us to create a consistent base in terms of content look and feel, and encourages the right behaviour in our course creators. The system provides clear parameters under which course creators should write and author material while still enabling them to include variety within the solution. It’s enabling them to bring really compelling interactivity into the learning they create.
"People have commented on the highly visual nature of the content, and the fact that they feel involved in learning rather than simply clicking through the pages."
Initial content produced using Mohive has included training on the Tesco values, the leadership models used in the business, and specific modules on health and well-being.
Common standards
“Material is developed to a common set of standards using a common approach, all under the umbrella of the Tesco Academy”, explains Mark. “This ensures that training materials are of the highest quality, are consistent in approach and can be trusted by staff wherever they work across the group.
“We’ve been pleased with the content we have developed so far," says Mark, "and staff have indicated we are doing the right things. In particular, people have commented on the highly visual nature of the content, and the fact that they feel involved in learning rather than simply clicking through the pages. This is a direct result of the combination of strong instructional designers and the Mohive product.”
"We anticipate that between 15 and 20 courses will be available by the end of 2010. It's a critical stage of the programme and the experience will help us realise our goal of creating an internal team of Subject Matter Experts and course creators who really understand our business, our design standards and how to use the Mohive system."
Delivering a strong learning experience
“We need to make sure that we create a strong experience for staff; that we’re creating content that engages people, and that it can be accessed using technology that works. Instructional design will always be the critical element at the core of good course creation and no authoring tool is going to take that away, but my belief is that a strong instructional designer would find Mohive a simple product to use."
"The focus of Academy Online is on delivering a 'learning experience' for staff as opposed to simply a database of information or traditional learning management system."
Academy Online was developed in conjunction with staff to provide simple awareness of training and development opportunities in the business and access to high quality resources. Its focus is on delivering a 'learning experience' for staff as opposed to simply a database of information or traditional learning management system. This means delivering a strong interactive experience tailored to where people work and the jobs they do.
You can find out more about the development of the Academy Online portal/LMS in the Benefits of experience article by Steve Rayson, also in this Newsletter.