Nationwide
Achieved Results
According to a survey we ran internally, getAbstract came out top as the learning resource that people want to see more of.
About Nationwide
Nationwide is the world’s largest building society. It is a leading provider of savings, mortgage loans, and other banking and insurance services in the UK. The company currently employs around 18,000 people.
Business challenge
The high number of employees, as well as the fact that Nationwide’s staff is spread across different locations and pursues a variety of different tasks, is putting high demands on the personnel development team.
Meanwhile, as demand for workplace flexibility is growing, traditional training programs are becoming less and less practical. As Emma Quinton, Leadership Development Manager, explains: “Our challenge was to find a learning and development solution
that works for everybody in the organization.”
How getAbstract helped
Nationwide sought out getAbstract to help it achieve one of its core strategic learning objectives: to develop and nurture a continuous learning culture. A key advantage of the getAbstract solution is that it enables self-directed learning at the point of need. For Emma, getAbstract’s 10-minute summaries provide “bite-sized learning units that employees are able to digest.”
Compressed business knowledge from getAbstract, for example, complements the learning content offered at “Nationwide Academy,” an internal learning gateway geared towards business executives. Users of the tool thus have direct access to hundreds of curated channels on topics ranging from “Agility” to “Change Management.”
Emma thoroughly enjoys working with the getAbstract Customer Success team, which helps her tailor the platform’s content toward the company’s specific needs: “Our getAbstract Customer Success Manager is brilliant at finding and recommending titles relevant to our strategic learning objectives.”
Successful knowledge transfer depends on employees’ ability to absorb new knowledge and put it into practice. To assist in this process, the company offers a series of online and offline activities called “Espresso Sessions.” The program invites executives to participate in 90-minute meetings on personal development topics of their choice, such as “Growth Mindset” or “Emotional Intelligence.” getAbstract summaries thereby serve as a basis for discussion and provide additional background information to help participants consolidate the learning content.
Emma appreciates the variety and relevance of getAbstract’s content, which allows executives to learn new personal development strategies in “espresso” time: “Our ‘Espresso Sessions’ give our executives important new tools and techniques that they can then share with their teams. In addition, the getAbstract library facilitates access to both practical and theoretical knowledge, allowing participants to delve more deeply into specific topics.”
Self-directed, continuous learning is also facilitated by getAbstract’s Mobile App, which allows for onthe- go access to both text and audio versions of the platform’s diverse content. Nationwide employees have been actively sharing getAbstract content on a variety of interactive platforms, including Twitter and Sharepoint. Reading recommendations are also regularly discussed on the internal networking platform Yammer.
At Nationwide, employees embraced getAbstract very quickly: “By weaving getAbstract throughout all of our learning solutions, we were able to get the momentum going and attract 2,500 active users within the first six months,” Emma observes. She continues: “According to a survey we ran internally, getAbstract came out top as the learning resource that people want to see more of.”
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