Ants Tech Recruiters level up as a learning organization
Ants Tech Recruiters are experts in tech recruitment and employer branding. The success is built on strong customer relationships and specialist skills. Ants’ consultants work closely alongside the customers to give tailored expert advice.
Ants is a learning organization. Every employee is given skills development opportunities within their areas of interest. Employee training drives both personal and organizational growth. Internal subject matter experts get to contribute to training and sharing their skills. This is a way to leverage internal knowledge.
The organizational values are built on collective learning. Team success means greater success. The goal is to become industry thought leaders and to contribute to innovation. Alongside the core business, Ants’ employees are frequent speakers at external trainings, roundtables and conferences.
Julia is passionate about learning. Alongside her role as Talent Acquisition Manager, she is responsible for evaluating and optimizing internal training programs and knowledge sharing forums. She plays an integral role in building the organization's learning culture. Her work involves quality assurance, liaising with subject matter experts and measuring both long and short term learning goals.
Challenges
- Organizational growth means more training
- Training employees on multiple locations
- Manual admin and follow-up
- Addressing multiple different skill needs
- Plenty of courses - without a go-to hub
- Intranet hard to search and navigate
- “Too many chefs in the kitchen” when involving the organization
1. Organizational growth means more training
Ants is on a steady growth journey. In just 3 years, the company has grown from 40 to 140 employees. Being a learning organization, more employees means more training.
The need for automation and scalable processes arose early in the process. Ants wanted to meet the growing expectations of a structured and professional course offering. It was vital to find a long-term solution to support future growth.
2. Training employees on multiple locations
Most training and information exchanges used to take place in a classroom environment. As the organization expanded to new locations (and remotely!), classroom training was no longer an option. Logistics and follow-up became more and more difficult as the organization grew.
3. Manual admin and follow-up
With a growing number of employees, manual admin and follow-up quickly became more challenging. It was difficult to keep track of enrollments and course history using Excel spreadsheets. Self-reporting also proved challenging. Google forms were used for evaluations and Word documents for note-taking.
Manual processes consumed increasingly more time and resources. Ants hired a dedicated Learning & Development Coordinator to take care of all training-related admin.
Manual tools provided limited access to data and opportunities for follow-up. It was difficult to find continuity and to establish routines around admin and reporting. As a result, the L&D team experienced outstanding tasks and ad hoc projects.
"We wanted a modern and user-friendly LMS that could support the L&D team and reduce the time we spent on admin and follow-up. Our ambition was to create a go-to hub for all types of learning."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
4. Addressing multiple different skill needs
In a growing organization, there are plenty of different skill needs. All individuals are in different stages of their company journey, life and career. New employees might have different needs than those who have worked long at the company. In addition, seasoned professionals work alongside fresh graduates.
With organizational maturity comes new skill needs. Ants is part of a dynamic business landscape with constant innovation. To gain a competitive advantage, it was important to make the right priorities and ensure that the learning interventions align with the business objectives.
5. Plenty of courses - without a go-to hub
Despite a rich course offering, Ants lacked one central, go-to hub for learning. To encourage self-directed learning, they required an internal academy for both scheduled courses and everyday learning at the point of need.
6. Intranet hard to search and navigate
Ants used an intranet for compiling and distributing information. Employees accessed learning resources including instructions, FAQs, and course-related documents. The accumulated resources eventually made the intranet unstructured and difficult to navigate.
Employees struggled to find the right information and occasionally used the resources incorrectly. Maintaining the intranet became more time-consuming which made it difficult to keep the same high quality.
7. "Too many chefs in the kitchen" when involving the organization
Ants is a learning organization that involves the entire organization in training. Internal subject matter experts are given the opportunity to contribute to, or take full ownership of, training programs. As the organization grew, so did the number of course contributors.
To maintain the same high quality training, the organization required structure and communication. Clear processes and information around responsibilities and learning goals were crucial. Without a mutual understanding, employees risked taking on similar tasks and making duplicate work.
Solutions
- Scalable formats increases the capacity
- Automated processes reduce the need for manual admin
- The internal academy provides structure and boosts motivation
- Blended learning environments address multiple different skill needs
- Training on the employees’ terms
- Go-to hub for all learning
- User-friendliness empowers the entire organization to contribute to training
- Personal coaching and a network of learning organizations
1. Scalable training formats increases the capacity
Online training with Learnster's LMS caters for more learners. By repackaging content from classroom training into online sessions or e-learnings, more employees can participate. Courses are now more accessible, remote-friendly and with a clearer course outline.
With e-learnings, instructors can create more condensed courses. They no longer need to prepare for recurring training events, which frees up valuable time for follow-up, quality assurance and developing the course offering.
2. Automated processes reduce the need for manual admin
With Learnster’s automation rules, many previously manual processes are now automated. These include sending out reminders, evaluations and course-related documents.
Thanks to the user-friendly authoring tool, the course creation process has also become more efficient. Having all content available in one place makes it easier to manage. By duplicating courses, templates and documents, instructors no longer have to create everything from scratch.
"We had demos with several LMS providers, but only Learnster was the perfect fit. The platform is modern, user-friendly and enables us to automate manual processes."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
3. The internal academy builds structure and boosts motivation
Ants has launched the internal academy Techrek Academy. Built with Learnster’s Catalog function, it is the organization’s go-to hub for both mandatory and optional training.
The increased accessibility encourages self-directed learning. Having all learning resources in one place, the academy has become an individual course plan. Employees can track their own progress as well as upcoming courses. Team managers can also track, plan and follow up on the employees’ learning journeys.
Techrek Academy also provides better structure and more clarity. Courses are now categorized based on role type, seniority and phase of the employee journey. Course-related material is part of the course outline, instead of separate documents. With custom design, the academy and all its contents become consistent and company-branded.
The ambition is to keep developing and expanding the academy with topics that cover individual career goals and areas of interest. The content is based on feedback and input from employees and subject matter experts, with a focus on the employee life cycle.
4. Blended learning environments address multiple different skill needs
Blended learning environments boost opportunities for learning and knowledge sharing.
Non-instructor led training is distributed as self-paced online courses that can be completed based on work schedules. The format fits particularly introductions and theoretical training. Scheduled online classes are used for theoretical training, advanced level courses and discussions within compliance as well as optional training.
Daily learnings and information at the point of need are packaged as micro-learnings and accessible resources.
Combined, the variety of learning environments provide a comprehensive solution that covers multiple different skill needs and knowledge goals.
5. Skills development on the employees' terms
Everyone has different needs and learning styles. Blended learning environments provide suitable formats for every employee. The combination of texts, images, videos and online meetings makes learning dynamic and engaging.
With Learnster, learning can take place anywhere, anytime. With self-paced learning resources, employees can be in charge of their own time and learn based on their schedule.
6. Go-to hub for all learning
Alongside the internal academy, Ants have a parallel information hub. Learnster Resources makes the organization’s articles, guides, manuals and videos categorized and searchable. Improved structure and clarity encourage speedy information gathering at the point of need.
Learnster Resources is also used for distributing guidelines for managers, instructors and subject matter experts. Examples include “Expectations of a course instructor” and “How to follow up on your employee's learning journey”.
The improved structure also makes admin easier. Therefore, Learnster Resources has replaced the previous intranet with its limited capacity. Today, employees are only referred to Learnster.
Having both courses and other learning resources available in one place, employees can easily find what they are looking for. Thus, employees become less dependent on external, and potentially less appropriate, information sources.
7. User-friendliness lets more people contribute to training
Learnster makes life easier for learners and instructors alike. The user-friendly authoring tool lets everyone create courses - regardless of previous experience. With dynamic admin roles, everyone gets admin rights suitable for their responsibilities.
Subject matter experts can create, update, or take full ownership of training. They have a valuable role examining the content and identifying areas of improvement. Team managers get the possibility to track and follow up on their team’s learning journeys as part of providing better support. Combined with user-friendliness, Learnster’s admin roles create organized opportunities for knowledge sharing.
By involving the entire organization in training, Ants get valuable input and feedback on skill needs and learning priorities. Insight is a key part of planning and implementing future learning interventions. Employees benefit from more courses based on role type and seniority.
"The Learnster team has shared valuable know-how about templates, processes and their approach to learning. It has been vital for finding structure that supports continued growth."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
8. Personal coaching and a network of learning organizations
The implementation of Learnster was a close collaboration between Ants’ L&D team and the Customer Success team at Learnster. It was a smooth roll-out, thanks to tailored settings, training and thorough preparations.
Learnster and Ants still have a close dialog. User experience, feedback and practical tips are shared during regular meetings. In addition, Learnster’s support are always available to provide guidance and advice.
Through Learnster, the team at Ants have been introduced to similar, like-minded professionals in other organizations. Together, they discuss best practices and share thoughts and ideas around opportunities and challenges.
Results
- Scalable training interventions - more employees can participate in training
- On-site meetings are used more efficiently
- Less admin and more value creation
- Courses get higher rankings
- Increased accessibility drives self-initiated learning
- A developed course offering creates individual learning journeys
- One go-to hub for learning - employees find what they need
- More everyday learning and peer-to-peer recommendations
- Ants is an attractive workplace - employees stay longer
- Better structure and routines for subject matter experts
- Organizational ownership - more employees want to contribute to training
- Collective learning boosts the competitiveness and supports essential business goals
1. Scalable training interventions boost capacity
Since introducing Learnster’s LMS, more employees can participate in training. By packaging the content from classroom training into e-learnings or online sessions, employees can join regardless of time and location. The digital format makes it possible to boil down the content and make courses more concise. Instead of spending several hours on training, employees can now learn something new in just a few minutes.
"Instead of spending several hours on training, employees can now learn something new in just a few minutes."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
2. On-site meetings have become more efficient
Before, on-site meetings such as office breakfasts and knowledge sharing forums were used to discuss basic questions and topics. Today, this type of information is accessible through self-paced e-learnings in Learnster. Employees can now use these on-site meetings to deep-dive into topics or discuss more complex questions.
3. Less admin - more value creation
Automated processes have greatly reduced admin work. Ants' Learning & Development Coordinator has cut admin time by 50%. This has freed up valuable time to develop the course content and offering.
Instructors no longer need to prepare for recurring classroom training, thanks to self-paced online courses and e-learning. Instead, they can focus on creating new courses to fit more roles and seniority levels.
"Our Learning & Development Coordinator has cut admin time by 50%."
"Instructors no longer need to prepare for recurring training events and can focus on developing new courses that cater to more roles and seniority levels."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
4. Courses get higher rankings
Courses get higher rankings from employees. Thanks to the internal academy, the course offering has become more structured and professional. With better routines for evaluation and feedback, Ants can better meet their employees’ skill needs and areas of interest. The subject matter experts help ensure high quality by contributing with their skills and identifying areas of improvement.
5. Improved accessibility promotes self-initiated learning
Now employees can request courses and information based on their areas of interest. This has generated more self-initiatives associated with skills development. Taking ownership of your own development boosts self leadership.
Blended learning environments offer employees formats that fit individual learning styles and needs.
6. A developed course offering provide individual learning journeys
By spending less time on admin, Ants’ L&D team can focus on developing and optimizing the course offering. With more topics and role specific courses, employees can learn and advance within more subjects. This creates better opportunities for individual learning journeys.
"Role specific courses create better opportunities for individual learning journeys."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
7. One go-to hub for learning - employees find what they need
For all types of learning, employees are referred to Learnster. It is the company’s go-to hub for both courses and other learning resources. The improved structure helps employees find exactly what they need. Today, instructors receive fewer questions regarding where to find courses and supporting documents.
8. Everyday learning and peer-to-peer recommendations
Improved structure and accessibility encourage everyday learning. The L&D team has seen a rise in usage of learning resources. Employees have also become better at using internal learning resources for the right purpose, which makes them less dependent on their colleagues. There are also more peer-to-peer recommendations of courses in Learnster.
"Employees have become better at using internal learning resources for the right purpose, which makes them less dependent on their colleagues."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
9. Ants is an attractive workplace - employees stay longer
Opportunities for skills development and contributing to training boost employee engagement. The possibility to grow and develop at the workplace encourages employees to stay longer.
10. More structure and better routines for subject matter experts
Course templates and clear instructions create better routines for instructors and subject matter experts. In addition, the internal academy gives an overview of all existing courses and potential gaps. This helps create a mutual understanding of processes and areas of responsibilities, which prevents duplicate work.
11. Organizational ownership - more employees want to contribute to training
Today, training has a broader ownership. The individuals most suited take ownership of training. Internal subject matter experts have become more proactive when it comes to updating, revising and developing training. Ants L&D team has seen an increased level of engagement as more employees want to contribute to training. Either by creating new courses or through developing existing ones.
By involving the entire organization, Ants gets tips and input on skill needs and priorities, which are valuable when developing future training.
"Collective learning plays a central role in our overall business goal: being industry thought leaders."
- Julia Florén, Talent Acquisition Manager, Ants Tech Recruiters
12. Collective learning boosts the competitiveness and supports essential business goals
User-friendly tools for knowledge sharing make it easier to involve the entire organization in training. It helps the organization leverage internal knowledge and learn from each other.
Collective learning plays a central role in Ants’ overall business goal: to be thought leaders in the industry. It also contributes to the organizational values. Grow together involves helping each other to grow and develop - both internally and externally. Be the future means having an innovative mindset and staying up to date with the latest industry trends. Both are manifested well and got a boost since the introduction of Learnster.
The internal academy helps Ants become a learning organization and work towards the business strategy: Techrek Growth, which means competitiveness through skills development.
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