How IHG Transformed Leadership Training with Learning Pool

IHG Leadership Transformation Through Learning Pool

It’s the background

InterContinental Hotels Group is an international hospitality company headquartered in Buckinghamshire, England. It operates a family of 17 trusted hotels, including Holiday Inn® and InterContinental® luxury resorts, and offers more than 884,000 rooms worldwide to more than 150 million guests each year.

The challenge

In 2018, IHG conducted a strategic review that highlighted the need for its employees to have more productive conversations in the workplace. In order to meet its growth goals, it became clear that IHG needed its entire leadership to begin a training program in the art of holding “intelligent conversation.”

The solution

Partnering with Learning Pool, the Learning Pool Platform was selected to deliver a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to 3000 IHG ​​level 1 leaders worldwide. The Learning Pool Platform was used as a central delivery tool for the MOOC, with selected IHG content to create a central hub of activity where a global “intelligent conversation” would take place. Each week, participants logged into the Stream to receive a new set of content alongside various chat challenges. The MOOC was developed by IHG’s L&D team using integrated videos and selected content from internal and external sources, for example, TED talks.

Throughout the MOOC, leaders view content and contribute to the Learning Pool Platform to earn XP points for completing that week’s level. Every week, IHG also creates a live web event (directly integrated with the Learning Pool Platform) using WebEx. This needs to be scaled up to deal with all 3000 participants entering the platform at the same time; something the platform dealt with comfortably. These recordings were then made available through the platform for participants to re-watch on demand.

Finally, IHG created contribution challenges that required participants to add their own user-generated content to the site and reflect on what they learned. Using the Learning Pool Platform’s built-in video capture technology, leaders uploaded short videos of themselves answering questions and demonstrating how they would implement the discussion principles discussed during the MOOC.

Results

The response of the leaders was amazing; more than 30,000 were generated throughout the MOOC, and more than 1500 videos were added to the platform. These contributions came from partners in 42 different countries.

• 1500+ videos added to the platform
• 42 different countries contributed content
• 30,000+ responses generated throughout the MOOC

A more in-depth analysis showed a clear continuity of thought throughout the MOOC, with increasing numbers of students committing to implementing changes in their behavior and providing evidence of how they tested the new strategies at work. In stark contrast to most MOOCs, IHG’s “smart conversation” leaders actually increased the time they spent on the platform from week to week.

Measuring Community Value with xAPI

Following the MOOC, IHG was keen to measure the real impact the learning had on behaviour. Throughout the MOOC, learning data was collected and stored in the Learning Pool’s Learning Record Store. In retrospect, Learning Pool’s data scientists were able to analyze the interviews to see how many people actually took action at work at the end of the five-week experience.

Using a method to measure the quality of online discussion in a learning environment (presence of mind), Learning Pool was able to map posts to assess the quality of reflective discussions on a three-point scale.

The Learning Pool LRS provided incredible insight into the impact social experiences have had on individuals and the organization as a whole.

Four weeks into the public experience, IHG can demonstrate:

• 50% of participants realized how they could change
• 12% of participants had actually tried the new behavior

The answer

About 400 colleagues participated in the hackathon and we are really happy with the high level of quality discussions and the rich discussion that took place. Participants were thoughtful and intentional when sharing their experiences. Using rapid content approval has really allowed us to add more value to what we do, as previously we could only have one piece of content and comments aside, but the Learning Pool Platform has allowed us to have a more focused and interactive experience, covering many different genres. of learning materials into a single piece of content and allowing users to engage with it.
– Lianne Coriette, Global Director, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Health, Future of Work

Recently

After the upheaval brought about by the pandemic in the workplace, IHG was determined to understand what is happening in the business in terms of leadership and culture, especially regarding welfare and the future of work. They are looking to design a program that will give them this understanding.

The solution

A thousand IHG colleagues from its corporate offices were invited to the “Next Thinking” hackathon; a three-day event where insights were gathered and used to inform future strategies on topics such as Culture and Leadership, the Future of Adaptive Work, and Wellbeing.

Using the Learning Pool Platform to host the hackathon, the company is looking to engage employees in a focused environment, regularly testing them for quality data and value to inform the business. Using rapid content approval within the platform, the team was able to create a variety of content types, such as multiple choice questions and videos and publish these alongside open comments.

Multiple data sources were then verified, compiled, and entered into the Learning Pool LRS. Dashboards are created with visual effects to make analysis simple and transparent. As the LRS was the vehicle for capturing ideas and written responses, it allowed IHG to delve deeper into the personal experiences of its employees, enabling them to make informed decisions about their unique situation.

The goal of the hackathon was to help IHG understand what the business might need to do to develop the culture it aspires to have. It also talked about the recent global introduction of flexible working and what else they need to do to make it successful. The final piece of the puzzle was about well-being and understanding what the workers are going through. What was needed for development in terms of culture, policy and practice? How can business help managers develop the skills to carry out the social responsibilities that the organization has undertaken?

These sessions are supported by a number of e-coaches; members of the HR staff from around the world, are assigned to investigate and investigate and ensure that the causes of any problems are uncovered and that practical solutions are considered.

Results

The hackathon resulted in the collection of more than 4500 comments on the Learning Pool Platform, and these were organized into main themes so that the results and associated action could be interpreted.

The hackathon promotes several areas going forward, including:

• To inform IHG’s leadership development programs and strategies by knowing how their leaders are perceived and the skills needed for the future.
• A process of informing and behavioral changes throughout the organization by understanding what is holding back their growth aspirations, helping them get to the root of the problems.
• Informing leadership discussions, education and training resources, and office engagement activities by hearing colleagues’ concerns and opportunities related to returning to the office and implementing a work mix.