Tara Deakin, VP of Learning and Enablement, has shown cutting-edge success in changing the learning culture at Rogers Communication. Since she began in 2002, with a staff of ten (now 200), Deakin has racked up impressive gains in learning productivity and efficiency. One clear example is the new call center where new employee productivity is up from 40% to 80% of a tenured employee in 60 days instead the previous 180 days. This translates into a significant 10 percent cost reduction per developed training hour last year. That currently amounts to $59 per hour of training costs , and Tara is planning on another 10 percent reduction in the coming year. That is significant when you train 100,000 employees per year.
Empowerment of the employee has driven Deakin’s learning approach. The learning environment at Rogers has shifted from compliance (formalized) learning to reference (informal) learning. She seeks to position training and learning to enable the employee to become successful, something every employee wants. The shift is to informal, unstructured learning “driven by technology and social learning”.
Theses informal, personal and relevant learning activities are the core of what is Rogers Communications calls the R-Tube. While R-Tube still incorporates traditional e-learning, R-Tube breaks down the learning curriculum into smaller “nuggets”, which allow the learners consume on demand - without registration, without formal tracking or compliance activity. The result of this is that Rogers can see what courses and content are valuable and most relevant to the employees. This allows cost savings in course design and development. “By breaking the course apart, we were able to see the knowledge they were hungry for and what they needed to do their jobs,” Deakin says. R-Tube allows the learner to even generate their own content and teach others.
Tara Deakin has done a wonderful job of transforming Rogers Communication into a more efficient and productive learning organization. I look forward to seeing what advances she will make in her future onboarding, retail sales and call center roles.
Source: Chief Learning Officer - January 2011
Source: Chief Learning Officer - January 2011
