Background
In order to improve teamwork and collaboration across the business as it moved from a full-time office structure to most colleagues working from home, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) chose to transition from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. The switchover began in Q2 of 2020 and the organisation originally planned to allow employees to manage their own learning via video training and self-exploration. However, nine months following the initial rollout, CAA carried out a temperature check with its workforce to assess employee familiarity and confidence in using the system and received feedback that additional support would be necessary for full adoption. Having listened to and acknowledged the needs of its workforce, the business engaged Underscore to provide a tailored training programme to support its workforce with the switch.
Solution
Having worked with the CAA on the earlier Skype rollout, Underscore was in a privileged position of knowing the business operations fairly well. Using this previously gained knowledge, Underscore was able to work with several departments within the CAA including the IT function and Business Change to agree a suitable training plan.
As the CAA had already spent time gathering feedback from its workforce on the challenges being faced, it was able to provide clear guidance to the Underscore team on what needed to be covered. Using this information, Underscore was able to very quickly get a training programme organised and the CAA began advertising it. The original batch of sessions was oversubscribed and additional dates were quickly added to ensure as many employees as possible could attend.
Due to environmental factors (the pandemic) and also due to the nature of the training being organised, all sessions were run via Microsoft Teams, which enabled attendees to actively practice the skills being taught during the session. All of the training was delivered in bite-sized learning events, to minimize the amount of time required by attendees, but also to maximize effectiveness of the learning.
Topics covered key functionality of the software within the context of CAA processes, as well as key issues around data management, to ensure employees used the programme in line with the organisation’s policies.
Challenges
One of the main challenges identified by the CAA during the initiative was the number of individuals wishing to attend the sessions. Originally a small number of dates had been scheduled for the training, however upon seeing the widespread interest from across the business, alongside the positive feedback from those attending, additional sessions were soon added.
Underscore worked with the CAA to provide as many sessions as deemed necessary and offered flexibility in when these were run, to ensure that as many employees as possible could attend.
An additional challenge that became apparent during the training was that many employees had questions regarding how to use Teams for their specific niche and job role. This included queries around data management, information storage and external communications. To ensure that all queries could be addressed in line with CAA policies and procedures, Underscore worked with the CAA to develop an efficient FAQ process, whereby queries would be relayed by the Underscore team to the CAA and responses would be shared to all via Teams and SharePoint Online.
Other queries were also raised with regards to functionality within Teams that users had experienced in other online meeting platforms. One example was the use of breakout rooms, and again, once the query had been raised, Underscore worked with the CAA to identify how this would be incorporated into CAA working model and provided training on these additional features as a value-add piece of content.
Feedback and Outcomes
In addition to highly positive feedback from those who attended the sessions, the CAA also reported a number of positive outcomes across the business. The IT function reported that the number of queries coming into the department related to the use of Teams was significantly lower following the training. In addition, internal tracking showed that the number of calls, meetings and events being scheduled and attended via Teams had increased drastically once the training was complete. These data points indicate that attendance at the training sessions not only improved people’s knowledge of the software, but also contributed to increased confidence and willingness to utilise it envisaged by the business.
Simon Sheeran, Head of IT Operations at the CAA, was involved in getting the training up and running. He shared the following feedback on the experience:
Why did you choose Underscore to support you on this rollout?
“Underscore was an instinctive choice for the training. Susan [who managed the training] has worked for us previously on the Skype systems roll-out and we had lots of favourable feedback. Underscore helped with engagement challenges and helped colleagues to see how all of the capabilities available in Teams could benefit them in their roles day to day as well. Susan was very approachable in the training and people really liked her style.”
“Susan was proactive in offering dates, being flexible in terms of how many we could fit in a day. And thanks to her input, we very quickly got a training programme organised, advertised it, found it was massively oversubscribed and had to come back to Susan to add some more dates to the diary, by which point the training had started and we were getting a lot of positive feedback.”
What are some of the changes you noticed in response to the training?
“With renewed confidence from being involved in the Teams sessions, people would get stuck in and try different things, which really speaks to that curiosity value that we had asked Susan to push during the sessions. People would come back and ask questions and Susan would feed that back to us, which helped us create a rounded picture of how people had taken it and what sort of questions people had been left with.”
What are some of the main aspects you contributed to the success of this training and rollout?
“I would say it is about trust and taking time to listen to what our employees need. It has been very positive for us, Susan has got a really good reputation with our people and a good relationship with them as well, they trust her and like her style. Certainly, where we have those more cultural challenges where we move people along that change curve, helping to understand their mindset, and seeing it through the eyes of the customer, we would certainly be looking to work with Underscore again.”