19 Jul
The financial services sector is going through its own evolution – changing ecosystem and talent requirements. In this dynamic environment, Jombay has been privileged to partner with a Leading General Insurance Company in a unique initiative to make it’s talent ‘future-ready’
In an effort to engage and retain the best talent, the organization runs everything from managerial assessments to managerial development in a scientific and blended model – and that too at scale! I am most proud of the new age methods, game mechanics and microlearning techniques we have used to engage our managers. After all, learning methods for the modern learner need to be modern! Presenting an interview with the client partner who ensured the project’s success along with her team! We asked her about the learnings from this successful partnership & our various projects together.
What was the business intent of running the Talent Assessment exercise?
Over the years, we have been running multiple exercise in line with our people strategy of ‘building capacity, building capability & building culture’ at our organization. We started off with a Virtual Assessment Center along with a Behavioral Event Interview as a part of ‘Catapult’- our flagship promotion program for select sales employees. This was done primarily with the aim of providing unbiased inputs to inform internal talent decisions. We also used a similar virtual assessment approach, albeit with a different set of competencies and difficulty level for junior to middle management cohort of employees as part of ‘FG LEAD’- our flagship talent assessment and development program focused on building future leaders within the organization. After that, we kicked off a one-year-long development initiative called the ‘FG Learning Lighthouse Program’ for a group of 1000 employees across various geographies and from a number of teams and levels (Managers of Managers, First Time / HiPo Managers, and Senior ICs). This challenging cohort mix has been introduced to a yearlong ‘phygital’ (physical blended with digital) learning journey. The intent has always been to establish a learning culture within the organization and to develop them for their future roles.
What was the format of your previous learning initiatives? What have been some challenges?
Previous learning interventions have consisted of workshop formats. At our organization, ‘Simpler, Smarter, Faster’ has always been a motto wherein we want to leverage the best of technology in all our learning & talent endeavors. The development journey with Jombay has been to bridge the knowing-doing gap by helping our managers be more self-aware and practice leadership on an ongoing basis beyond workshops, in an aim to make them more“future-ready”. This was primarily facilitated by an easy to access and continuous learning journey in the form of micro-content on the FG LLP iDev application. The intervention focused on a range of behavioral, functional and technical topics to aid wholesome and personalized learning for every function in the organization. Customer Centricity, Building High-Performance Teams, Innovation, Planning and Prioritization, Collaboration, Innovation, Selling Skills, and Business Strategy formulation were some of the key competencies in focus.
What was the experience of running development journeys so far?
The challenging mix of learners (from varied geographies, levels, and teams) has meant that using a hybrid assessment and development model is key! This sees considerable savings in time and cost for the organization. The our team and Jombay’s practice coaches have been able to connect with the learners through virtual connects, and via WhatsApp groups and nudges. A customized approach was adopted to engage with each type of learner cohort – from the “fence-sitters” to the “early movers”. This has boosted engagement levels so that they are considerably higher than our previous learning initiatives!
What was the feedback from the managers?
Some of the key observations have been in the following areas:
- The content was relevant, useful, practical and engaging.
- The different learning interventions including peer learning (through WhatsApp) were very effective
- The activities were a great opportunity to demonstrate the application of concepts
- The introduction of game mechanics (leaderboards, quizathons) was exciting and went a long way in ensuring learners don’t drop out!
What were some learnings for implementing a successful and scalable leadership development exercise?
I would say there have been three key learnings:
- Implement new-age learning techniques. Learners get bored with traditional formats.
- People are busy; microformats of content in combination with physical workshop formats work out much better.
- Get business buy-in early on and make them sponsors and spokespersons of the program.
As we kick off another year of assessment & development journeys, I look forward to our teams innovating together to bring newer ways of learning to their organization.
