A Global Transportation Leader Stabilizes Large-scale Transformation Through Strategic Training

The Client

Since its formation in 2011, this company has grown into one of the world’s largest transportation groups. Operating leading airlines in Ireland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, its premium and budget brands connect over 350 destinations worldwide. Moreover, they serve nearly 120 million passengers and move countless tonnes of cargo annually.

The Challenge: An Unexpected Market Upheaval Provides an Opportunity to Upgrade Internal Processes

Every airline struggled through the long and unpredictable travel restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this group was no exception. However, looking ahead, leadership focused the time on improving the company’s internal tools and processes to ensure they came out of the situation stronger and in a better position to weather change in the future. Meanwhile, they also created a new business unit dedicated to their global tech operations. 

To learn more about the digital and scaled Agile transformation they took on, read the case study here.

A vital part of every successful enterprise-wide transformation is a robust training program to enable and empower employees at all levels of the organisation to succeed in the new reality the transformation is creating. However, the global tech business unit did not have a formal learning and development program set up. 

So, they turned to Cprime—their trusted transformation partner—to quickly spin up a training program that could start making a difference immediately.

The Solution: An Innovative Approach to Rapid Training Success Across 19 Tracks

Unlike many learning and development engagements Cprime has headed up, a quick turnaround was of high priority because the client was pursuing a tight timeline for their digital transformation. By the time the organisation was ready to pursue this new training program, the goal was to have employees fully trained on new roles, concepts, and processes (which were still being established) progressively over a period of 18 to 24 months, starting as soon as possible.

Rather than creating bespoke training courses with original custom content—an excellent but time-consuming option—the training team decided to focus on sourcing, curating, and coordinating delivery of existing courses that would fill the client’s needs as quickly as possible.

Progressive, role-based training in three phases

“We started by outlining a series of learning pathways in three phases,” recalls Alex Gray, Cprime’s Lean Agile Practice Lead on the engagement. “They had to be role-specific, developed in priority order. They also needed to be tailored to ensure students would be able to absorb the elementary level coursework immediately, and would then be knowledgeable enough to successfully progress through intermediate and advanced coursework as the transformation progressed around them.” 

As a result, pathways were developed to guide students to take on 19 different roles within the transformed tech business unit:

“Each level of each pathway included a group of core modules that contained the basic concepts, required skills, and practical guidelines around fulfilling each role in the transformed organisation. Then, a range of additional modules provided supplemental knowledge and deeper dives into each role, which the students could take on at their own pace.”

But how were the learning pathways developed so quickly? 

A new training role created to fill the need

Alex continues, “Since we were not creating any of the content, we needed to approach building these learning pathways in a different way. I worked closely with Aradhana Sabherwal—one of Cprime’s experienced Agile Coaches—to fill a new role we haven’t needed in the past. We called it the Learning Curator.”

The responsibility of the Learning Curator was to:

• Identify any learning challenges across the business unit
• Suggest the skills that could help the organisation meet those challenges
• Liaise with internal SMEs to understand the client’s learning context
• Seek out Agile learnings that could instil those skills in the teams
• Describe the modes and formats in which the learning would be delivered to the teams
• Design the learning pathways
• Build the system and access points to support the teams’ learning and application

“Once we had an outline of the pathways completed, it became a matter of leveraging Cprime’s own catalogue of existing instructor-led courses where possible, and seeking out third-party classes and interactive video courses to fill in the gaps where necessary.”

Coordination and management to keep the program on track

This unique combination of formats and providers required the efforts of an exceptional Learning Manager—a role well-suited to Cprime’s Vicky Brownsell.

“Vicky serves as the coordinator that ensures the ongoing training program runs smoothly, because there are a lot of moving parts.”

“Once we had an outline of the pathways completed, it became a matter of leveraging Cprime’s own catalogue of existing instructor-led courses where possible, and seeking out third-party classes and interactive video courses to fill in the gaps where necessary.” -Alex Gray, Cprime Lean Agile Practice Lead

The Learning Manager’s responsibilities include:

• Hosting in our learning management system (LMS) and training management system (TMS)
• Coordination of the training schedules to support each student’s progressive learning path 
• Booking participants onto Cprime and external courses
• Following up with participants to make sure they have booked, attended, and completed classes
• Engaging with Cprime instructors and third party vendors to solidify schedules 
• Agreeing the best possible rates with third party vendors to ensure the client is getting the best deal without compromising on quality
• Coordinating billing and invoicing between the client and training providers

“Vicky’s work has been invaluable over the last three quarters as the training program has only grown in size and complexity,” Alex says.

The Results: Smooth, Progressive Training with Clear Practical Impact

“The most powerful evidence of the success of this program is the fact that the students who have gone through the program are successfully applying what they’ve learned to their evolving roles within the changing organisation.” 

So far (as of January 2023) 265 students have benefited from a total of 932 hours of education in the ten months since the program launched. Cprime has also worked simultaneously with the client to develop internal capabilities so they will be able to take over the management responsibilities to keep the program running continuously going forward.

Alex adds, “Something else that underlines the value Cprime brought to this engagement was the fact that our executive sponsor started out requesting continuous input as every detail was arranged. But, she very quickly grew comfortable with the level of quality, efficiency, and professionalism we brought to the table. Now, she only wants a weekly update to keep her in the loop, and she’s thrilled with the outcomes so far.”

Consequently, as the client’s transformation progresses, these qualified and experienced students are forming a strong foundation of expertise to solidify the new way of working.

Could Your Company Benefit from Results Like These?

Whether you’re undergoing a large-scale transformation or just looking to upskill your teams to increase productivity, efficiency, and quality, Cprime’s pre-developed and custom learning solutions can get you there. Contact us today to explore your options.