Cable & Wireless uses an innovative e-learning approach for business continuity training

Global business continuity training.

"We didn't want an average e-learning module where the learner just clicks through a set of text based pages," says Russell Williams, Cable & Wireless Business Continuity Manager. "Because the subject can be perceived as dry it was really important to us to keep our staff interested and engaged. We believe that the solution Brightwave came up with is a truly innovative way of presenting information that sticks in people's minds."

Key benefits

Customers know that their business is in safe hands.
Reducing overall business risks in case of disasters.
Compliance with future business continuity legislation.
Employees know what to do, how to minimise business impacts, and who to contact in the event of an emergency or crisis.
Rapid bespoke development – just 13 weeks from beginning to end.
Raising awareness about where business continuity information is stored.

Cable & Wireless

Cable & Wireless is a leading international telecommunications company with customers in 80 countries. For more than 130 years it has constantly reinvented itself to embrace the latest technological advances to serve its customers' needs. Over two-thirds of companies in the Fortune 500 use Cable & Wireless and the company prides itself on a service culture, always striving for excellence by listening to their customers' needs.

During the last couple of years Cable & Wireless, like any other large organisations, has gone through a number of internal re-organisations to make the company better prepared for the future. One of the departments that were consolidated across the globe was the corporate governance team. Business continuity management falls under their responsibilities.

Business continuity training is often regarded as a 'nice-to-have' rather than an important part of every employee's training programme. With an increasing number of terror and cyber attacks as well as unpredictable natural disasters, companies have to make sure they do their utmost not only to protect the business itself but also ensure that their employees know what to do in case something should happen.

"We already had a strategy and policies in place concerning business continuity," says Russell Williams, Cable & Wireless Business Continuity Manager, "but we felt that the information needed to get out into the hands of everyone, rather than just sitting on our intranet."

Protecting the business and its customers

The main reason for developing a learning programme was to safeguard the business and the services they offer to its customers. A solid business continuity plan helps companies to not only protect their own interests, but also to make sure its customers feel safe about placing business in their hands.

Russell explains: "It's important that our customers feel that their business is in safe hands. We increasingly find that our customers are very clued up on the topic of business continuity and ask questions about it when they are in the process of choosing a supplier. Having a good strategy in place that is rolled out across the whole company is not just good to have, it's what every customer expect from their supplier today."

Another reason behind developing the learning programme was the new PAS56 legislation that is currently pending for business continuity and corporate governance. The global standard is currently under review and could come into force within the next 12 months. "Although the new standards are not in place yet, we believe they will come into force soon and we want to make sure we comply from the start," says Russell.

Why e-learning?

With 14,000 employees worldwide to reach, Cable & Wireless decided that e-learning was the best route. "Due to the scale and need for rapid deployment and re-usability, e-learning was the obvious delivery option," says Mike Booth, Manager, e-learning Services for Cable & Wireless.

Russell comments: "We could have run traditional presentations and workshops, but because we're a small team and the target audience is so large, it would have been very difficult to reach all employees and it wouldn't have been a very effective use of our time. Because this is a global proposition and the message is the same for everyone, we felt that e-learning would be the most effective delivery tool."

By using bespoke e-learning Cable & Wireless can tailor the programme to suit their audience learning styles and it can be visually designed to fit the company's brand. Bespoke e-learning courses are often showcased internally as good examples of how branding guidelines should be used to aid employee engagement.

"We chose to work with Brightwave because we had already seen what they had achieved for other clients, including an induction programme for our subsidiary Bulldog Broadband, so we were confident that they would produce a solution that would meet our objectives and come in on time and on budget," says Russell. "To be frank, we were more concerned about getting the course right from the beginning so that we could roll it out quickly, than going through a lengthy selection process. That approach helped us spend time where it was needed, during the project."

An innovative approach

Instead of developing a traditional linear e-learning course Brightwave came up with a concept that gives Cable & Wireless staff the opportunity to learn in a variety of ways.

"In reality, adults learn in both formal and informal ways," says Lars Hyland, Director of Learning Services for Brightwave. "Especially in today's increasingly fragmented world that is all about freedom of choice, we are getting better at assimilating and deciphering information. Learning design has to keep up with the changes and be sensitive to learning preferences, embracing all media from print to podcast and anything else that will follow. It's also important that the design provide greater value for money than ever."

The programme Brightwave developed for Cable & Wireless contains movies, interactive briefings and an online assessment section (called e-briefs, e-explores and e-assess). Throughout the course, learners can choose to either run the course on the Internet or download files onto portable devices to read later. They are also given the option to print off information and do the entire learning offline, returning only to complete the assessment.

Promoting the programme

To encourage staff to take the course, Cable & Wireless email the learners with a high impact multimedia trailer to capture their attention and to provide immediate access to the course.

"We always encourage clients to think carefully about the way they promote their learning and include internal communication in the project from the start," says Lars. "Without motivation and knowing why a subject is important, learners will not get the full benefit of the programme."

The course is rolled out in three phases to different countries and it is compulsory for all existing staff to take. Once it has been rolled out to all existing staff it will become part of the standard induction process for new joiners.

Rapid development

The whole project took only 13 weeks to complete, from kick-off to final delivery. This was achieved because of Brightwave's collaborative working methods. "We work very closely with our clients at every stage of the project," says Lars. "This is especially important when we have short time frames and need to come up with innovative solutions."

By involving the client in the development process as much as possible Brightwave ensures that everyone is fully up-to-date about the progress of the project and knows what is going to happen next. Brightwave even encourages clients to come and work at their premises, reducing the amount of distractions and supporting open communication.

"The biggest hurdle to getting the course ready was my time," says Russell. "Because we're a small team with global governance compliance responsibilities, we have to manage our time closely. We were impressed with the innovative solution that Brightwave developed, given all the restraints. With more time and money we know we could have created something even more spectacular, but we feel that we got good value for our money and we're very happy with the result."

Feedback and reporting

The content is SCORM compliant and the course is tracked via the company's Learning Management System (LMS) so that the team can run reports and gather feedback about who has gone through the course, when they completed it, and what pass marks they achieved.

Sticking in people's minds

One of the most important objectives for Cable & Wireless was to create an interesting learning experience, not just another traditional linear course. "We didn't want your average, page-turning e-learning module where the learner just clicks through a set of text based pages," says Russell. "Because the subject can be perceived as dry it was really important to us to keep our staff interested and engaged throughout the course, making sure they didn't switch off."

With Brightwave's innovative approach learners are kept on their toes all the time. Russell concludes: "The e-movies are a novel approach and a very good way of getting key messages across. We believe that Brightwave's solution is a truly innovative way of presenting information that sticks in people's minds."

Case studies quick links.

Introduction

E-movie

E-brief

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