The global consulting and technology services firm has long recognized that new managers need support. This has proven especially true in a learning climate marked by digital fatigue,  and what some have casually described as “death by pathway.”

At a time when the Capgemini business is scaling rapidly and client demands are growing more complex, the organization understands the importance of supporting its first time managers, to set them up for success right from the get-go.

Yet, traditional leadership programs are hard to scale, difficult to maintain, and often disconnected from the pace and priorities of the business. Learning delivery teams spend too much time managing training logistics, emails, and manual processes. And Learning teams want something more coherent, modern, and impactful.

To meet these challenges, Capgemini has launched an Emerging Leaders program—a guided, cohort-based experience built on Degreed Academies. The result? A 26% jump in skills proficiency, a big drop in attrition, and a 4.6 out of 5 learner satisfaction rating—proof that Capgemini first-time managers aren’t just trained, they are equipped to lead. 

Leadership Development That Starts Strong and Scales Fast

Co-created with business leaders and learning partners, Emerging Leaders follows a complete learning cycle. It’s more than a content playlist. It’s a full development journey designed to embed growth into everyday work, supported by nudges, mentors, reflections, and social accountability.

To build the journey, learning teams worked closely with HR and business leaders to define success, select content, and ensure the program reflected the company’s Leadership Vision—a set of guiding leadership principles that the company believes every employee should develop.

The result is an experience designed to match the expectations of a digitally fluent, ambitious audience. Employees progress through a six-week cycle, combining curated digital content, real-world projects, mentoring, reflection, and guided practice—all within a single Degreed-powered environment.

How Degreed Academies Makes It Possible

Degreed Academies gives Capgemini the infrastructure to deliver a holistic, guided leadership journey within a single, unified experience. From onboarding and nudges to live events and reflections, everything is centralized—no more spreadsheets, scattered tools, or siloed communications. And, with Microsoft Teams integration and built-in calendar functionality, participants stay on track while balancing their day-to-day responsibilities.

Capgemini uses Degreed Academies to structure monthly cohorts in a fully guided, week-by-week experience—layering content, leadership simulations, mentoring prompts, and reflection points in a clearly defined journey. Employees always know what to do next and why it matters. Automated nudges and personalized messaging help maintain momentum and accountability, without overloading delivery teams. By streamlining what were previously resource-heavy, manual tasks like scheduling, communications, and tracking, Degreed gives L&D professionals more time to focus on content quality, learner engagement, and business alignment.

Because everything runs through Degreed, Capgemini can access real-time insights on progress, engagement, and outcomes. This allows learning leaders to tweak delivery based on cohort behavior, and to identify bottlenecks early. With Degreed Academies, Capgemini isn’t just delivering training—it’s running a scalable, data-backed leadership product.

Features like live events, embedded reflections, and automated reminders help create a sense of connection and momentum.

Completion rates have peaked at 81%, with learner satisfaction scores averaging 4.6 out of 5.

More Than Engagement. Measurable Growth.

In 2024 alone, nearly 4,000 employees across 39 countries completed the program. Capgemini is on track to scale cohorts of 2,000 people per month in 2025. Attrition of managers who completed the program dropped to 6.5%, versus a much higher company average among the same target population.

And employee feedback has been resoundingly positive. Participants consistently call out the program’s relevance, structure, and challenge.

“The Emerging Leaders program was unforgettable among the other trainings I’ve taken,” said one employee.

“One of the most practical, useful, and challenging programs I’ve participated in,” said another.

Employees show a 26% average increase in skills proficiency from pre-program assessments to post-program outcomes. And more than 90% of those surveyed said they’d apply what they learned in their current roles.

A Model for Strategic Leadership Growth

Capgemini hasn’t just improved leadership development—the company has reimagined how it should operate. Instead of a fragmented or manual model, Emerging Leaders is now a repeatable, data-driven experience that’s aligned with the long-term Capgemini leadership strategy.

For enterprise learning teams facing similar challenges, the takeaway is clear: When leadership development meets thoughtful design and scalable technology, impact multiplies.

With momentum building and demand accelerating, Capgemini continues to refine and expand the program—proving that with the right model, early leadership development can be both high-impact and high-scale.

Learn more.

Build a scalable leadership program like this one. Let’s talk about how Degreed Academies can support workforce development at scale at your organization.

The post Innovative Leadership: Capgemini’s Approach to Emerging Leaders appeared first on Degreed.

What happens when one of the world’s most trusted financial institutions decides it’s time to realign its skill development strategy?

At State Street, the answer was clear: Build an enterprise-wide, data-driven, executive-backed foundation for workforce agility and internal mobility—embedded in the company’s annual business strategy and talent action plans.

With more than 50,000 employees globally and 11% of the world’s financial assets flowing through its systems daily, State Street needed a more strategic approach to skill development, one that could keep pace with evolving business demands and employee expectations.

“The business came to us and said, ‘We have no way of seeing what skills employees have. We have no way of understanding where our skill gaps are, where we need to upskill, where we need to reskill,’” said Laura Sullivan, Vice President, Talent Development.

That challenge sparked the launch of SkillsFIRST. More than an HR initiative, it’s a key lever putting skills at the core of performance, retention, and career advancement. Powered by Degreed and integrated into Workday, SkillsFIRST is helping leadership align talent supply with business critical needs—and empowering employees to take ownership of their skill development.

From Limited Insight to Connected Capability

Before launching SkillsFIRST, State Street lacked a unified view of its workforce capabilities, while employees sought greater clarity around growth paths and more targeted development support.

Rather than licensing costly inference tools, State Street used Degreed and Workday to build its own Skills Library, customized using a blend of industry benchmarks and internal expertise. With input from subject matter experts, learning teams defined seven core skills for each role and created tailored Role Plans in Degreed.

How the Degreed–Workday Integration Functions at State Street

At State Street, the integration between Degreed and Workday forms the backbone of the company’s skills-first strategy—bridging employee development with strategic talent planning.

The process begins in Degreed, when employees explore curated learning content and engage with the personalized Role Plans. Employees are encouraged to assess their proficiency using the Degreed eight-point scale, and then to initiate structured career development conversations by requesting manager input on their ratings.

Skills will ultimately be moved to Workday to power a range of critical HR capabilities including skills matching for open positions, internal job recommendations, and strategic workforce planning—all grounded in real-time evidence of capability from Degreed.

This integration ensures that career development isn’t just aspirational—it’s operational, measurable, and deeply connected to business outcomes.

Strategic Impact That Scales

In just the first year of implementation, State Street has seen meaningful results:

• Millions of dollars saved avoiding costly, third-party skill inference and talent marketplace tools.
• 50% of employees onboarded into SkillsFIRST
• 1,200 additional internal promotions in six months
• 11% increase in employee engagement scores tied to career development
• 34% of internal hires supported through SkillsFIRST data, avoiding costs of external hiring
• 21,000+ monthly skill ratings generating rich talent insights for planning and learning

These outcomes reflect more than a technology shift—they signal a cultural commitment to transparency, growth, and mobility.

Key Lessons for Talent Leaders

For HR, Talent, and L&D leaders looking to operationalize skills, State Street’s journey offers proven strategies:

• Begin with clear business objectives, not just system capabilities.
• Build shared language through a unified skills library and role plans.
• Integrate platforms to turn skills data into workforce intelligence.
• Empower employees to participate in—and benefit from—the process.

By positioning skills as the connective tissue across performance, planning, and development, State Street has redefined how a complex global organization can unlock potential and stay future-ready.

Learn more.

SkillsFIRST didn’t just transform learning at State Street—it improved retention, boosted engagement, enabled internal mobility, and delivered measurable cost savings.

Find out how a similar approach could accelerate outcomes at your organization. Let’s talk.

The post Skill Development at Scale: What State Street Is Doing Differently appeared first on Degreed.

External hiring is expensive. It takes time, and turnover is high. Indeed, about half (53%) of hiring managers across Canada say finding people with the right skills is their biggest challenge. That’s why learning leaders at the telecommunications firm instead turned to the company’s workforce. The goal? Reskill existing employees with the high-tech skills of tomorrow.

An internal workforce development program created by the company successfully graduated more than 500 professionals with specialized qualifications in high-tech fields. What’s more, the program led to happier and more successful employees and an estimated $18 million in cost savings and productivity gains. 

The Program: A Skills-First Approach to Learning

Like many others, this telecommunications operator experienced a rapid digital transformation. This shifted the demand for workers from traditional retail and technician roles to more advanced positions in software development, AI, cloud computing, and cybersecurity.

“We have very dedicated, engaged, and talented employees,” the company’s director of learning strategy said, adding that the organization was committed to adapting this enthusiastic and hardworking workforce for the future. “So the question was: With a surplus of people on one side, how do we create a bridge to the skills we need?”

Choosing Degreed

With an emphasis on quick and easy-to-access online learning, comprehensive curriculum development led by subject-matter experts from across the organization, and with a rigorous selection process focused on diversity, the strategy came alive. It’s a multi-pronged model—a customized online learning program followed by a two- to three-month temporary job placement for real-world practice.

With online learning as the foundation and skills as the key measurement of progress, the firm looked to Degreed to curate content and manage skills.

“We needed a place that made it easy to build curriculums and tie the pieces together. Not just the clicks to the content, but also the storytelling around it, and Degreed is really good at that compared to other platforms,” the learning strategy director said. “Degreed also allows us to build community by putting cohorts in virtual Groups where they can support each other.”

Managing Skills

“The only reason we were able to do all of this is because we were very laser-focused on skills and the proficiency levels needed for each skill in the reskilling process, “ the learning director said. “At the same time, we already had a little under 2,000 team members in technical fields who needed to stay upskilled. That was why we turned to Degreed—for both the reskilling of new talent and the upskilling of our existing technical workforce.”

The Results: More Engaged Employees, and Lower Costs

The results have been impressive, including: 

• Improved retention and satisfaction. The program in four-and-a-half years boosted retention among participants by more than 10% above the company average, with an average annual participant retention rate of 98%. Participant engagement and satisfaction levels exceed company averages by 8% and 10% points, respectively.
• Career advancement. More thanA substantial 22% of graduates were have been promoted following completion of the program, highlighting its role in career progression.
• Financial impact. The program has already delivered an estimated $18 million in return on investment (ROI), through cost savings from new hire recruitment and productivity gains.

The program is also about creating opportunities for graduates. “The number one measure of success we use is being able to say,  ‘Here’s your new job offer. Here’s your new salary. Here’s your new title,’” the learning director said.

Lessons Learned: Turning Executives into Deans

A key to the success of the program is its strong executive sponsorship—starting at the top with executives who play the role of “deans” in their areas of expertise, to directors representing each business unit, to subject matter experts who help develop the curriculum. 

“Those three layers of sponsorship give people pride, the learning director said.  “At the same time, everyone knows this is a CEO priority. Having that governance and that structure is super important for getting resources—and that included getting funding for Degreed.”

Learning leaders also attribute success to the combination of structured online Pathways in Degreed and on-the-job, experiential learning for participants to reinforce skills, expand their networks, and meet a potential hiring leader. The program includes biweekly touchpoints designed to help cohorts overcome roadblocks.

Seeing the results in action “feels amazing,” the learning director said. “I recently saw that a man who used to work in a retail branch just won an internal award for outstanding software development. He doesn’t have a university degree, but he participated in the program, built up his skills, and is absolutely stellar in his new career.”

Your company can reskill at scale too.

Your company can transform workers into award-winning software developers—or fill other critical roles.

It’s just a matter of following the telecom’s model of building scalable, personalized content and finding the right tools that support reskilling.

And if you do it right, you’ll not only prepare your company for the high-tech future, but you’ll boost employee morale and can save your company millions. Those kinds of reskilling returns beat the risky and expensive strategy of buying skills every time. 

Find out more.

Join us at Degreed LENS 2025, where learning pioneers will share insights, best practices, and bold visions for the future of work.

The post This Telecom Reskilled 500 People into Tech Jobs for Big ROI appeared first on Degreed.

That’s why our annual Degreed Visionary Awards recognize trailblazers in workforce development.

Announced today, this year’s winners are redefining agility, leadership advancement, and AI transformation.

Join us here we share—and celebrate—their achievements.

Capgemini – Business Booster Award

For: The Generative AI Campus

Capgemini faced a dual challenge: Build a workforce that’s ready to help clients put Gen AI to work and integrate AI into internal operations. The solution? The Generative AI Campus, an ambitious, large-scale learning initiative powered by Degreed.

Built and deployed in only 10 weeks, Generative AI Campus made AI learning available to 340,000 global Capgemini employees, giving them what they needed to be AI-ready for internal and client-facing initiatives. With 23 tailored learning plans, 68 curated Pathways, and more than 1,300 content pieces, the program resulted in:

• 310,000 employees accessing AI learning resources—the fastest adoption in Capgemini history.
• 91,000 employees trained on AI tools in just six months.
• 50,000 AI-related certifications awarded, solidifying the Capgemini position as a leader in AI expertise.

Embedding AI fluency, Capgemini strengthened client trust, enhanced efficiency, and drove a 200% increase in AI-driven client project engagements—proving skills are a key competitive advantage.

Citi – Productivity Propeller Award

For: I LEAD Through Innovation

The Citi I LEAD program has been a staple of leadership development since 2010. In 2023, leadership gave it a bold new direction—focusing on measurable business impact.

The new I LEAD Through Innovation program combined structured learning, executive sponsorship, and four months of hands-on project work, all woven together by Degreed. This approach has led to:

• More than $5 million in business impact across 59 projects designed to increase revenue, decrease costs, and optimize regulatory work.
• An 85% increase in job-relevant skills.
• A 96% expansion in professional networks.
• 41% of participants were promoted within two years, accelerating leadership growth.

Infusing learning into real-world business challenges, Citi turned leadership development into a strategic driver of innovation, retention, and revenue growth.

Tata Communications – Efficiency Enabler Award

For: Build Not Buy Skills Programming

Facing high turnover and rising talent acquisition costs, Tata Communications flipped the script—investing in internal talent mobility rather than external hiring. A “Build Not Buy” strategy, built on Degreed, automated upskilling and career progression at scale.

Key achievements include:

• A 97% transition from in-person workshops to digital and blended learning.
• A 26% reduction in training costs.
• $900,000 saved in hiring costs.

Embedding AI-powered learning pathways, Tata Communications supported 55 key roles and 20 future-critical skills with structured, scalable learning—ensuring its people remain future-ready.

84.51° – Learning Expert of the Year

For: Using Data to Drive Decision-Making

84.51° reimagined learning among its data scientists to build leaders, boost innovation, increase workforce agility and mobility, mitigate risk, and provide executives with more actionable insights. The company’s data-driven approach integrated custom skill taxonomies, personalized learning journeys, and real-time performance analytics.

Key results include:

• More than $40,000 saved in external training costs by shifting to internal expertise.
• $1 million in technology cost savings linked to initiatives enabled by Pathways-based learning.
• A four-times increase in Pathway minutes completed.
• 90% of data scientists engaged in at least one skills badge in 2024.
• 78% of data scientists completed at least one skills badge in 2024.

With automated reporting, AI-driven insights, and targeted training, 84.51° transformed learning from reactive to strategic, ensuring every skill investment contributes directly to business growth.

State Street – Client Ambassador of the Year

The Client Ambassador of the Year Award is selected from all award applicants across all categories, recognizing an organization that serves as an exemplary model for other clients. The winner of this award demonstrates a commitment to innovation with Degreed, championing skills-based learning and driving meaningful impact across their workforce.

For: The SkillsFIRST Program

The State Street SkillsFIRST initiative reimagined career development, shifting from traditional training to a skills-based approach designed to drive talent mobility, employee engagement, performance management, leadership development, and innovation. By integrating Degreed with Workday, State Street used skill data in Degreed to trigger career planning in Workday—and gave leadership information needed to make strategic talent decisions.

Key impacts included:

• 25,000 employees onboarded into SkillsFIRST, covering 50% of the workforce.
• 1,200 additional internal promotions in only six months.
• An 11% increase in employee engagement.

Focusing on career Pathways, internal mobility, and leadership development, State Street reduced hiring costs, improved retention, and future-proofed its workforce.

Vale – Best Engagement Strategy Award

For: Learning Together (With SAP)

A global mining leader, Vale had a unique challenge: Ensure workforce safety and compliance training across a deskless workforce dispersed across its site operations.

The solution? Valer, a learning ecosystem designed to advance workforce skill development, boost productivity, and foster operational excellence. Its intelligent, AI-driven content recommendations tailored to employee needs, and its strategic, skills-first approach—featuring role-based, curated learning paths—connects the best of Degreed and SAP SuccessFactors.

Results include:

• 99% of deskless employees now included in digital learning initiatives.
• An 85% increase in monthly active users.
• 33-point-higher L&D NPS score than advanced manufacturing market average.

Seamlessly integrating Degreed with SAP, Vale turned training into a strategic enabler of workforce safety, compliance, and efficiency.

Honoring the Future of Learning

This year’s Degreed Visionary Award winners prove that learning isn’t just an HR function—it’s a business strategy. From AI-powered upskilling to leadership development and skills-based career mobility, these organizations are paving the way for a smarter, more agile workforce.

What’s Next?

Learn more. Explore the Degreed Visionary Awards and see last year’s winners.

Want to hear directly from 2025 winners? Join us at Degreed LENS 2025, where learning pioneers will share insights, best practices, and bold visions for the future of work.

The post These Learning Leaders Are Redefining Workforce Development appeared first on Degreed.

This content strategy directs how Regions Bank L&D builds and offers learning to more than 20,000 employees. 

But what if nobody knows how to find that content? L&D success requires more than flipping the content on-switch. Indeed, the internal marketing of learning opportunities to employees plays a huge role in making their development happen.

Have you ever wondered why people aren’t engaging with your curated content? They might not know it exists, the analysts at Training Industry recently noted. “Unfortunately, this is a common question among many L&D professionals and training departments. They invest time and money to design and develop the training without a marketing plan or strategy to ensure participation.”

At Regions—a Degreed client and member of the S&P 500 Index serving customers across the South, Midwest and Texas—L&D leaders made sure their people knew where to find the learning they needed. In a campaign that won a 2024 Degreed Visionaries Award, the Regions team took home Silver for Learning Marketer of the Year. Join us for our Q&A with Lanie Jordan, Learning and Development Curator, as we take a look at why ten times as many Regions employees as expected participated in the bank’s Degreed 5-Day Challenge. 

The Regions Bank Story: Wildly Successful Employee Engagement

Degreed: Congratulations on your award! Your story and incredible results will help other organizations looking for ideas on how to boost employee engagement. Let’s start with an overview of the campaign. What was the main objective? 

Jordan: Thank you. The Degreed 5-Day Challenge was a week-long campaign designed to promote the benefits and features of Degreed. We focused on how to leverage the platform in your personal upskilling and development, whether that meant upskilling for a current role, preparing for a next role, or solving problems in the flow of your daily work.

Each day began with a podcast interview with active Degreed users who shared their positive experiences with Degreed, followed by micro-learnings explaining how to navigate key functions, and finally tailored exercises for completing key tasks and activities designed to support career goals. Each day took roughly ten minutes to complete, helping our associates to use the platform for upskilling and reskilling, personal development, and career planning. 

At Regions, we really see a culture of continuous learning as essential to our organization’s long-term success. And that means providing our associates with upskilling and reskilling opportunities in a variety of options such as articles, podcasts, videos, courses—but they need to know about all those opportunities.

Degreed: Let’s go a little deeper. How was The Challenge conceived? What was the thinking behind how it was designed? 

Jordan: We wanted it to be a fairly light lift. The goal was to make each session brief but also impactful. The sessions focused largely on how to use Degreed in effective ways, the idea being that familiarity with the platform translates to ease of use, which in turn makes the actual learning that follows easier to accomplish. In that sense, our goal was to help reduce any initial friction people might feel after logging in. 

To deliver the campaign content, we created a Skill Plan in Degreed that contained welcome material as well as a Pathway for each of the five days, and each of those days had a different theme.

Day 1 discussed career-building resources including our Degreed Featured Page, which connects associates with relevant learning content and resources that support organizational objectives along with their professional growth. It enables them to take charge of their own development.

Day 2 discussed leveraging skills in Degreed, so in other words a look at creating and rating skills as well as focus skills and skill targets.

Day 3 focused on content recommendations, personalization features, and “making learning uniquely yours” to reinforce the idea of self-directed development.

Day 4 looked at using Degreed to upskill with an emphasis on finding content.

Day 5 discussed leveraging Degreed for social learning, in other words ways our associates can join Groups, follow each other, and share content to learn together using the platform.

Degreed: That makes a lot of sense. With your goals in mind, how did you go about pulling it together? What did the planning process look like?

Jordan: We socialized our plans to HR business partners and our learning architects in advance of the launch date, and those teams helped to refine and support the program through feedback, communications, and more. To reinforce and ensure alignment, we created and delivered a one-page overview and postcard to all of them, which was helpful.

Importantly, we partnered with our Head of Learning and Development, who was our executive sponsor and advocate for the campaign. And we featured her twice, first in an introduction to the program entitled Growing Your Career at Regions, a podcast in which she shared several key resources, including Degreed, that are designed to help associates in personal and professional upskilling. She also was featured in an inaugural, Day 1 podcast. 

We also partnered with Corporate Communications to market the campaign via internal news channels and email. As part of that, a midweek reminder was sent to all associates in which colleagues from across the bank shared success stories and best practices using Degreed. In addition, Jen Stewart, our Degreed Client Success Manager, participated in our final review. She helped to ensure that our daily themes, program flow, resources, and Challenge activities were aligned. 

Degreed: Now this all leads to, hopefully, good results, right? And this is one area where the campaign really shines. Your results were tremendous. Can we break it down a bit? 

Jordan: Yes, we were really pleased. Our initial goal was to have two hundred learners participate. However, over 2,000 associates participated in the campaign. Degreed usage increased by over 50% after the campaign.

Moreover, we saw sustained usage and engagement with the campaign. Both new and long-term associates still access it as a resource. And we had another really great outcome. Continuing Professional Education completions increased by 1,150%. CPE credits are offered for designations in SHRM, HRCI, PMI, CPA and other areas. And this is beneficial because when our associates leverage internal resources for CPE it reduces the need for external spending on travel, conferences, and other out-of-office activities.

Degreed: And our understanding is the program was so successful you replicated it specifically for your people leaders? 

Jordan: That’s correct. Given the success, we launched a campaign for people leaders one month later. It focused on leveraging Degreed Skill Coach to support the career and development of direct reports. The impact was consistent with the initial launch, with 20% of our people leaders participating. And data shows that Skill Coach usage skyrocketed.

Degreed: What are some of the key lessons you learned deploying this campaign? Or put another way, what advice would you give other L&D professionals hoping to do something similar? 

Jordan: By breaking Degreed key features into bite -size learning and having associates share their stories and experience and how they benefit from engaging with the platform—whether that be how they upskill in their current role, solving issues in the flow of daily work, or preparing for their next role—it really resonated. 

Sharing associate successes with Degreed can be done in countless ways from internal news channels, promotion announcements, and, in our case, how organizations provide learning on how to leverage the platform. The ideas are endless. 

We are thrilled that a large percentage of Regions associates accepted The Challenge! Associates invested in themselves, became engaged during the week, devoted their time, added skills, requested feedback, set goals, and shared the Pathways and content with their team members, making those that participated the real winners.

Learn more.

Let’s explore how Degreed can help you know, learn, and grow the skills your business needs. Get a Degreed demo.

The post The 5-Day Challenge: How Regions Bank L&D Aced Platform Engagement appeared first on Degreed.

Changes happening at BT Group mirror this trend perfectly. The London-based giant is transitioning away from its roots as the well-known British Telecom into a technology company with a reimagined name and a broader scope.

But a business can’t change unless its people change. And now, Degreed Automations is making workforce development at BT Group simpler for L&D—and more personalized for employees.

Driving Change at the Speed of Technology

BT Group employs 100,000 workers globally, including customer-facing units, network maintenance employees, and infrastructure support staff members. The company needed a way to upskill its massive, diverse workforce without overwhelming its L&D and admin teams.

Echoing the experience of many Degreed customers, the BT Group L&D transformation began with the launch of a skills taxonomy mapped to 600 core roles across the company. Still, the L&D team needed a way to ensure employees in any role could evaluate their current skill sets—and stay motivated to upskill at the speed of technology.

Degreed Automations power upskilling at every opportunity.

BT Group used Degreed Automations to surface the right learning to the right workers at the right time. Using this tool, Degreed administrators can build a variety of automations—like nudges and reminders—that lead employees down personalized learning journeys. Degreed clients can use Automations to power learning during onboarding, to support learning journeys (for example training prior to a new product launch), drive career growth, and more. 

At BT Group, learning leaders deployed nudges and reminders that helped the company launch its growth into a full-fledged technology company —while supporting each employee in the process.

“We know that self-led learning can sometimes be a bit of a lonely place,” said Andrew Seddon, Learning Experience Platform Specialist at BT Group. “We want to be able to provide a journey for colleagues as they go through some of that learning.”

Onboarding Every New Employee

BT Group uses Degreed automations to ensure every new employee had the guidance and training they needed from their very first day. As soon as users log in, they see auto-pushed content designed to get them started at the company.

Because Degreed integrates with so many other systems easily, the L&D team pulls in HR data automatically. This data continually indicates who needs onboarding content, triggering Degreed Automations to deliver it at the right time.

“That’s a massive win for our admins…  who don’t have to manually find who the right people are,” Seddon said. “You can set and forget. And that’s been brilliant.”

Nudging Learners Along a Comprehensive Experience

Employees at every company at times face critical learning needs—like a new product launch, compliance deadlines, or upskilling for a role change or promotion. Degreed Automations empower admins to easily package and promote content, then deliver it to individual employees at exactly the right time. 

BT Group used Automations to keep pushing and pulling employees down tailored journeys with a reminder to finish a Pathway they’d started or take a skill assessment. Seddon likened his strategy to reminding online shoppers to complete the checkout process after abandoning their carts, all without feeling clunky or pushy. “Because the emails and the notifications and everything are from the same platform, users feel that the journey is connected from start to finish,” Seddon said.

BT Group L&D also used the tool to recommend next steps, such as content recommendations, assignments, and follow-up suggestions—creating long, self-led journeys tailored to each employee. “That’s where I think this gets exciting,” Seddon said. 

Less Effort for L&D—and IT

On the administrative side, automating learning journeys requires no coding, so Seddon’s team didn’t have to wait on IT to custom build any automations.

The Dawn of a Simplified Learning Tech Stack

“We’re really looking forward to working with Degreed in the future,” said Seddon, whose team—thanks to Degreed Automations—sunset a separate tool it had used for L&D admin.

Now, all nudges and content suggestions come from Degreed automatically with minimal management from staff. 

In addition, the BT Group IT department now has more time to focus on other important tasks.

Learn more.

We’ve been busy writing posts like this one—exploring how you can orchestrate workforce development with Degreed Automations. See the rest.

Let’s chat. Contact us to request a demo today.

The post BT Group Delivers Personalized Learning with Degreed Automations appeared first on Degreed.

The idea? Put skills first, and make Ericsson a skills-based organization that puts skills to work. The strategy? Approach learning in ways that are no longer programmatic but instead systematic—to maximize potential, improve outcomes, and excel at adapting to change.

An impressive Ericsson success metric reveals the power of this path: Five years ago, the telecom giant began upskilling a relatively small group of 300 scientists to use artificial intelligence. Now, more than 30,000 of the company’s 100,000-plus employees are considered very proficient in AI.

Skills First: Advancing with Purpose

The next time you use your cell phone, there’s an outsized chance the data you send and receive will be traveling on an Ericsson network—but it wasn’t always this way.

A leader in 5G technology, the Stockholm-based company’s infrastructure, software, and services span the globe. The company’s origins are more humble, however, dating to its founding as a telegraph repair shop in the 1800s.

“​​We’ve been reskilling, reimagining, and reinventing for a very long time,” said Vidya Krishnan, Chief Learning Officer and Global Head of Learning & Development. “We’re 148 years old. . . We refuse to act our age.”

Skills First: A Journey with Two Key Goals

The skills-first journey at Ericsson has been unfolding in two parts. In part one, Krishnan said, “we want to build skills, build future-critical skills, and we want to do that systematically company-wide, which means we have to sense what skills matter, and we have to connect skills to [business] strategy, and we have got to make sure … that we build future critical skills with speed, with scale, and with accountability.

“Part two is putting skills to work. We need to be equally systematic, equally reliable, and even more inclusive than we’ve ever been about putting skills to work in high impact areas, in growth areas, by being skills-based increasingly across all of our people practices.

“If there’s one thing we know for sure, it’s that the people we have must continually become the people we need,” Krishnan said. “The companies that are going to outperform other companies will do so by out-learning them and being able to put the right people with the right skills in the right places at the right time, again and again and again.”

Readying the Foundation: Efficiencies & Infrastructure

To put skills to work, Ericsson has been creating an environment in which skills-first strategies can thrive. The effort dates to 2019, and Degreed has been a key partner, especially helping the organization to pinpoint the skills it needs, to personalize development, and to measure change.

Internal skill and job architecture frameworks had become stagnant. In some cases, job profiles hadn’t been updated since 2013, fueled by inefficiencies in workforce planning and skill assessment. This led to a lack of career transparency. Employees faced uncertainties about career progressions and lacked clear visibility into the skills required for future roles.

“When people wanted to think about, ‘Well, what do I do next?’, it wasn’t clear,” said Peter Sheppard, Head of the Ericsson Global L&D Ecosystem, describing missteps. “We’d spend a lot of time assessing people, understanding people, and then we threw away the receipts.”

Tactical needs overshadowed strategic workforce planning, limiting the company’s agility. Key processes weren’t automated or optimized.

“We hadn’t updated our old competencies catalog for three or four years. We needed it to be more automated,” Sheppard said. “Do that, and we deliver more value.”

Making Change

Ericsson introduced a new digital job architecture and integrated skills deep into job profiles, aligning them with a new and dynamic skill taxonomy. In doing so, leadership embraced automation whenever possible and, moreover, generated momentum for a skills-based approach to business.

The company moved from ad-hoc training programs to a systematic approach of identifying and developing critical skills aligned with strategic business objectives. This included defining a set of global critical skills—a vital few—essential for the company’s future, irrespective of job roles or functional areas.

New approaches to governance made room for change in the flow of work. For example, business units were empowered to enhance job profiles as needed without waiting for HR.

A pivotal shift came when Ericsson embraced a skills-based approach to people practices—from recruitment to learning and development and more.

This included:

• Integrating skills into job advertisements.
• Creating a talent marketplace called Career Hub based on skill matching.
• Enhancing career mobility through project-based learning initiatives.

It all added up to a dynamic, skills-first ecosystem. And through it all, data collection and sharing were prioritized.

The company now has data that acts like a window, providing leadership with a clear and useful view of the organization’s skills supply and demand. It also helps L&D to regularly update leaders and employees on what is happening with skills across the organization.

Putting Skills to Work—and the Good Reasons Why

Putting a skills infrastructure to work drives several benefits—including higher employee retention and more inclusion, Sheppard said, adding the number one reason people leave Ericsson is a lack of personal growth.

“Secondly, it helps with what I call visible simplicity,” Sheppard said, describing a dynamic in which employees can easily see all the same skills across talent and learning platforms from a talent marketplace to Degreed.

Third, embracing skills enables an organization to pivot, Sheppard said. “If you don’t have dynamic skills, then how can you pivot quickly as a company?”

Putting Skills to Work—Grow, Match, & Deploy

Ultimately, putting skills to work at Ericsson was about more than creating a skills-based infrastructure.

“It’s about solving pragmatic problems,” Sheppard said. “It’s about putting it to work in different processes for the value of Ericsson and for the value of yourself as an employee.”

With a system like the Career Hub talent marketplace, Ericsson is able to put skills to work by matching and deploying critical skills into strategic areas.

“We want to enable people to fulfill their ambitions and fulfill their growth through our Career Hub, by ensuring that we match people to project opportunities, to job opportunities, and so on.

“This is the fundamental element of making all this practical,” Sheppard said. “It comes down to matching technology. Can you match the skills needed—that are defined in those job roles, that are defined for your business—with the skills that I have as an individual?”

Maximizing, Improving, & Adapting

Systemic skill building through massive targeted upskilling positions Ericsson to maximize employees’ potential. The company is improving outcomes by aligning career mobility with skills development while boosting employee engagement, retention, and satisfaction. Likewise, Ericsson is adapting to change—responding to new business needs and market trends—by enhancing agility and increasing efficiencies.

By putting skills to work using data-driven insights, Ericsson future-proofs its workforce, clearing a path for continuous innovation and sustainable growth.

At Degreed, we’re reminded that—in a world where change is constant—the future indeed belongs to organizations willing to embrace the power of putting skills to work.

“We all know 5G is not the last G, right?” Krishnan said. “Technology is inherently upgradable, and so are we. And we’re proud to say that we have this sacred duty to get our 105,000 employees in 180 countries to change themselves, their skill sets, and their mindsets, because we know that we’re creating connections that can make the unimaginable possible.”

Take the next step.

Let’s talk about skills at your organization. Request a Degreed demo today.

The post ‘We Refuse to Act Our Age’: How Ericsson Puts Skills to Work appeared first on Degreed.

The 2024 Degreed Visionary Awards recently returned for its second annual trophy ceremony, celebrating Degreed clients from around the world that are advancing skill building and workforce development in innovative, productive, and engaging ways.

“We had so many great submissions this year, and it’s a testament to the incredible forethought, planning, and sweat equity our clients put into their L&D programs week in and out all year long,” said ceremony co-host Michelle Vock Laboy, Vice President of Client Success for Degreed Academies and Content Marketplace. “We recognize that it takes a lot of work to submit these applications, but it takes a lot more work to build out these learning programs and really create a world-class system of learning, development, and skills. We’re inspired, grateful, and proud to recognize all this outstanding work.”

The submissions shared some common themes—including the notion that to get ahead, an L&D program needs to start where it’s at, learn from that experience, and then grow from there. Perhaps you’ve felt this at your organization? Here’s hoping the winners’ stories provide a little inspiration. 

The 2024 Degreed Visionary Awards were announced in early March in Houston at Degreed LENS, our annual flagship conference. Let’s take a closer look at the organizations that took Gold, Silver, and Bronze in each category. We’ll also introduce you to the 2024 David Blake Learner of the Year, an individual recognized for exceptional personal growth.

Learning Technology Launch of the Year

Visionary Awards in this category are presented for outstanding achievement in implementing a Degreed product. 

Gold: BNY Mellon

The New York-based bank needed to make it easy for learners to find the right learning and to assess their skills, to build skills needed for tomorrow. To launch Degreed LXP+, learning leaders prioritized the company’s engineering organization of 12,000 employees. Using agile practices, they conducted six early launch campaigns, and a full enterprise launch followed. In addition, the company launched Degreed Academies to more than 250 participants.

Judges awarded the Gold award based on BNY Mellon’s significant 38% cost savings through content optimization via Degreed and the 3,261 active learners the platform attracted in the 48 hours post-launch.

From kick off to launch, “We did it in less than a year,” said Judy Arruda, Vice President of Global Learning and Development. “And we took an agile approach. We had 10 work streams focused on this. It wasn’t just learning and development folks. We made sure we have the right partners from the business, technology, communications, et cetera.”

One of the reasons BNY Mellon implemented Degreed was employees didn’t know where to go to find learning materials, Arruda said. “It was confusing. One of the great things that’s already happened is Degreed is our front door to all learning for the organization. And that aligns with investing in talent . . . and having something to attract talent as well.”

Silver: bp

The talent team at the London-based oil and gas company aimed to align employee skills, passions, and purposes with the company’s vision. The team created its Workforce of the Future program to unlock employee potential, personalize learning, and provide more meaningful employee experiences through a culture of lifelong learning.

The Degreed implementation grew from a pilot aimed at 7,000 people to a full launch serving 42,000 employees three months later. Since then, 89% of workers have rated at least one skill, and more than 60% log in at least once a month.

Note: Bronze was not awarded in this category this year.

Learning Marketer of the Year

Awards in this category are presented for outstanding achievement in adopting and using Degreed.

Gold: Innovapost

Employees at the IT Services Management company based in Ottawa, Canada, operate with a guiding principle: No one gets left behind. For L&D, this means everyone has opportunities to learn and grow their skills, and the company invests in world class learning partners to support people’s learning needs.

To promote those initiatives, the learning team employed a number of tactics including completion and skill-rating challenges, scheduled learning hours, and a variety of communications. The upshot? In 2023, the company achieved 100% employee adoption of the Degreed platform. Leadership credits the activities it took to get there with contributing to the organization’s 2023 employee retention rate of 97%.

Silver: Regions Bank

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, the financial institution presented employees with a five-day challenge designed to promote the benefits and features of Degreed. Brief daily informational sessions lasting 10 minutes or less focused on upskilling, reskilling, career planning, and personal development. The campaign engaged employees through several communications channels, including daily podcasts.

Learning leaders exceeded their participation goal by 10 times, and Degreed usage increased by 50%.

Bronze: KPMG Brazil

People struggled to find learning across a multitude of access points at the South American professional services firm. After learning leaders implemented Degreed to help, they needed to promote it to 4,000 people in 25 offices across nine states.

Launch activities combined an online virtual event and in-person road shows featuring senior leadership, who helped to demo and champion the platform. The result? Employees rated thousands of skills. Nearly 75% of employees are active Degreed users, and nearly 400 new hires engaged with a fresh new-hire experience.

Business Performance Program of the Year

Visionary Awards in this category are presented for outstanding achievements in the use of Degreed to improve organizational strategic business outcomes.

Gold: TD Bank

TD Bank created its FutureNow program to help 95,000 employees build capabilities aligned to key business priorities, providing enterprise-wide learning content focused on the skills most important to the business through multiple modalities including Degreed. Learning leaders promoted the program through a variety of channels including people, managers, emails, lines of business, HR, and L&D.

Judges were impressed with the bank’s build-once-for-many approach to developing and deploying learning resources, which enabled the company to create a more scalable and cost-effective way to upskill its 103,000 employees.

“There is an enterprise learning framework that was designed that underpins the strategy for FutureNow,” said Dave Woeller, Associate Vice President, Human Resources, Enterprise Design and Digital Learning Technology.

Among the pillars of that framework, “Any topic or content that we build has to have relevance across the 25 business lines that we support and has to be aligned to bank strategy ,” Woeller said. 

“The FutureNow program has enabled us to actually start living and breathing the build-once-deploy-for-many philosophy, which has increased our efficiency, making sure our resources are tacked to the highest-priority work, and then also reduce content duplication and confusion for our learners.”

Silver: KPMG Global

Learning Leaders at the worldwide professional services organization empowered employees by providing them access to lifelong learning opportunities valued by leadership.

KPMG Global enabled access to globally developed learning pathways and plans that ensure expert guidance reaches local member firms. As a result, more than one million learning items were completed in 2023. In addition, more than 300,000 skills were rated by over 100,000 employees, with an average of 72% of users returning to the platform across 95 countries.

Bronze: Allianz

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the financial services provider has reached 17,000 leaders through its lead learning program. The goal is to equip these employees with world class skills—in technology, change management, inclusive leadership, wellbeing-coaching and more—to help them navigate a constantly changing, digitized world.

In 2023, Allianz tracked attendee progress and found participants collectively clocked 1.2 million hours of learning.

Learning Innovator of the Year

Visionary Awards in this category are presented for outstanding achievements in using the Degreed platform in innovative, creative ways including specific learning initiatives, diversity and inclusion projects, skill development strategies, and manager or leadership learning programs.

Gold: Exness

The Cyprus-based fintech company significantly transformed its approach to employee development following the company’s introduction of the Degreed LXP. A year after implementation, Exness pivoted to a data-driven model for training that aligns with the company’s diverse employees’ professional aspirations.

Using skill matrices to map skills and proficiency levels, Exness effectively inventories staff competencies and then tailors training services to plug gaps and meet organizational objectives.

“Two years ago, Exness experienced significant growth. They almost doubled our headcount,” said Dmitry Shevchenko, Online L&D Manager. “As a result of this very fast organic growth, our structure became quite complex.”

Leaders realized a significant number of people in different positions with different titles were performing similar jobs and functions. “It was the first issue we wanted to address,” Shevchenko said. “Another thing was our approach to decision making in terms of L&D. It was quite classic and it was a reactive one. We wanted to change it, to make our decisions more meaningful.”

Silver: Bell Canada

At the nationwide telecommunications company, a virtual employee university provides opportunities for people to develop the skills needed to redirect their careers into new management roles. Dubbed Bell U Academy, it helps employees obtain professional designations and qualifications in high-demand, technology-focused areas. The Degreed platform is a key enabler of the program. 

After three years and with nearly 500 graduates, the program has increased female representation in high tech at Bell, improved retention and engagement, ensured high performance, promoted career mobility, and saved the company money on recruitment. Return on investment is estimated at an impressive $18 million.

Bronze: CI&T

The corporate CI&T University sought to strengthen CI&T as a skill-based organization where individual competencies are the foundation for collective growth and ongoing success. To accomplish this, learning leaders created communities of expertise with a focus on learning, training, and innovation, generating new vertical business offers. Learning leaders also identified skill gaps and provided clarity to managers for upskilling. Along the way, they’ve used the Degreed platform to help employees focus on cutting edge topics like generative AI. Degreed has become the center of the company’s skill development initiatives.

David Blake Learner of the Year

This award, named for the Degreed co-founder and CEO, recognizes outstanding achievements made by an individual in the use of Degreed to grow skills and advance a career.

Winner: Brandon Konecny, Checkr

Using an annual personal learning stipend managed through Degreed Content Marketplace, Brandon Konecny, a senior commercial and regulatory counsel, upskilled in compliance and advertising law and purchased a number of books that support his ongoing development. The company’s flexible approach to providing learning opportunities afforded Brandon autonomy over his learning. As a result, he’s applied new skills in his current role at Checkr, taking on more responsibilities.

Ready to learn more?

Watch the full 2024 Degreed Visionary Awards ceremony.

And watch A Visionary View: Ask Award-Winners Anything, a conversation with Visionary Awards Gold winners at Degreed LENS 2024, now available on demand.

The post L&D Teams Dazzle in Second Degreed Visionary Awards appeared first on Degreed.

Sound familiar? Unfilled positions are a common, global concern. A new and extensive Korn Ferry report finds that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs could go unfilled because there aren’t enough skilled people to take them. Left unchecked, in 2030 that talent shortage could result in about $8.5 trillion in unrealized annual revenues.

At Cielo, the challenges didn’t end with unfilled roles. In addition, business leaders sought to increase staff diversity, and learning leaders needed to reduce the cost of training across the company’s workforce of over 6,000 employees at multiple locations across Brazil.

L&D Turns on the Turbo

To tackle these challenges, the L&D team in 2021 created Modo Turbo, or “Turbo Mode,” a career acceleration program aimed at selected employees. Training happened mostly in person at the company’s headquarters.

Turbo Gets a Boost

In 2022, learning leaders took the whole program a big step further and began supporting it with Degreed, which enabled the program to expand to other regions of Brazil. Today, participants follow a customized curriculum that covers soft and hard skills in weekly face-to-face and online training sessions. In addition, networking meetings with the company’s leaders are a key component.

“With Modo Turbo, we have met the demand for faster and more effective preparation of professionals who, despite having potential, were not yet ready to assume strategic positions. The result is a more capable and developed team to overcome challenges and achieve the company’s objectives,” said Karla Woods, Superintendent of Attraction and Organizational Development at Cielo.

Speedy Results

The addition of Degreed switched the focus from in-person classes to asynchronous learning, which provided everyone involved with more flexibility. This in turn enabled a 36% increase in employee participation. The number of training hours increased, and completions jumped by 61%. Cielo saved an eye-popping 36% on its total investment in Modo Turbo. At the same time, participant satisfaction went up.

The program also reflected Cielo’s strategies to strengthen the diversity of its workforce, with 50% of affirmative vacancies for women and black or indigenous people. The most recent class was composed of 57% women and 43% men. And in another big win, 53% of the participants were recognized with a salary increase or promotion after completing the program.

Looking Ahead

Cielo leadership wants to expand the Modo Turbo model to other learning projects — and Degreed will help make it happen

“Degreed clients are known for being pioneers when it comes to learning,” said Débora Mioranzza, Vice President for the Americas at Degreed. “In Cielo’s case, we worked together to create a customized journey that offered a robust and complete development framework to boost employees’ careers. The results achieved by Modo Turbo are exceptional, and we couldn’t be happier to be part of this story.”

The post <strong>Cielo Advances Careers, Boosts Diversity & Lowers Costs with Degreed</strong> appeared first on Degreed.

Researchers recently took the pulse of L&D and HR leaders across the Asia-Pacific region and found more than half (51%) viewed improving training and development as their top strategy for elevating workplace culture. Providing greater flexibility and autonomy (41%) came in second, followed by facilitating collaboration (40.5%), according to the survey by HR Exchange Network.

“These responses fit with the growing trend of personalizing employee’s experiences, demonstrating a desire to help employees grow professionally, and fostering a sense of community,” according to HR Exchange. “In Asia-Pacific, HR professionals are focused on learning and development. Specifically, they said adapting training to a hybrid workforce (17.49%) and identifying skills to train for (16.94%) are their focus in L&D. There’s an urgency with learning because 19.95% of respondents also said that the employee skills gap was the biggest challenge to the future of work.”

Getting the Most from Learning Technology

From training employees to giving them more autonomy and supporting their collaboration, a thoughtfully designed learning ecosystem can play a huge role in helping business leaders meet today’s business challenges.

Whether you’re supporting personalization, fostering community, plugging skill gaps, or all of the above and more, best-of-breed learning tech is designed to help your organization find its place in the future of work and build real business value. It’s why Degreed offers a comprehensive suite of solutions — Degreed LXP, LXP+, Academies, Benefits, Professional Services, and Extended Enterprise (EXE) — designed to put people’s experiences first.

A Case in Point: IBS Software

A leading SaaS solutions provider to the travel industry globally, IBS Software manages mission-critical operations for customers in the aviation, tour and cruise, and hospitality industries.

Supporting Employee Transformation

Based in Singapore, and with 16 offices worldwide, IBS Software was challenged to give employees a more intuitive way to access available learning content — to help them meet expected competencies for their roles, to boost their performance, and to upskill with an eye on advancing their careers. How the organization solved these problems is the focus of our latest Degreed case study.

Degreed-powered Development

Using Degreed as a front door to learning, the L&D team put formerly disparate third-party learning platforms together in one place, creating an easily accessible and unified learning ecosystem. The L&D team, a unit of only five people, scaled learning programs by empowering each of the company’s five lines of business (LOBs) as well as several software engineering units (SEUs) to use Degreed to drive the development of their people.

Relevant Learning at Scale

With help from Degreed, HR teams as well as the company’s LOB and SEU leaders, managers and employees are clear on roles and responsibility expectations. Degreed Plans, as well as the personalized learning experiences Degreed facilitates, help keep everyone aligned with the company’s role competencies and career frameworks.

People are supported with a flexible, unrestricted learning ecosystem. And employees across the company are getting the mission-critical skill-building content and information they need to be more productive.

“Degreed has beautifully integrated the various learning ecosystems that IBS Software had internally and also content platforms that were external,” said Ganesh Iyer, Global Head of Learning & Development. “For a product company like IBS Software, it is important for our people to have domain and product capabilities, as well as essential technical skills. Degreed has played a great role in enabling this education.”

Find out more.

Let’s talk more about your specific skill gaps, and how upskilling can help your company sharpen its competitive edge. Got questions? Want a demo? Contact a Degreed representative today. 

The post <strong>Learning in APAC: IBS Software Among Innovators Embracing L&D Tech</strong> appeared first on Degreed.