How do you train a distributed team of 6700 employees across 89 regions? The Movement of the First experience
Every day, thousands of Movement of the First employees across 11 time zones come to the Talent Rocks platform to learn, share experience and find like-minded people. Here’s how a corporate learning app became a rallying point for the team.
Client
The Movement of the First, an all-Russian public-state movement for children and young people, was established in 2022 to support the upbringing and career guidance of children and young people and to create equal opportunities for their well-rounded development and self-fulfillment (hereinafter, the Movement).
Today, the Movement brings together more than 9 million participants aged 6 to 25 and is the only public organization in the country where children and adults are equal participants.
Here, every child has the opportunity to realize their potential, find their calling and fulfill their dreams in Russia. They can take part in hundreds of unique projects in volunteering, science, sports, culture and other areas.
One of the Movement’s key principles is co-creation. It allows the Movement to bring different generations together. Everything people in the Movement do — children and adults alike — is aimed at helping society and achieving social impact. The good deeds of the First are meaningful work and a contribution to improving and developing Russia.
The Movement’s work is organized by 6700 employees spread across all 89 regions of Russia. Thanks to their efforts, more than 48,000 local chapters were opened and nearly 200 events were held across the country in 2024.
Challenge
The Movement is present in every Russian region, and almost 7000 employees need to share the same information and the same understanding. With this structure, in-person training is impossible — only remote learning works.
Initially, training was delivered through webinars and materials sent by email. But for greater convenience, the decision was made to look for a dedicated platform.
The main requirement: the platform had to support both asynchronous (e-courses) and synchronous (webinars) learning, as well as in-person events.
In addition, the solution had to offer the following capabilities:
- A mobile app was a must, since some employees travel for work and don’t always have access to a computer
- Learning paths for different employee groups, such as new hires, managers or functional teams
- Internal communications tools to unite employees and build a shared understanding
- Pulse surveys and knowledge-check tests
- Analytics on program completion and other activities
And, of course, the solution had to be listed in the Russian Software Register and store data within Russia.
We faced several challenges beyond teaching people how to properly organize work with Movement participants. It was important for us to bring all employees into a single information space, teach them to speak the same language and communicate the Movement’s goals and values correctly.
Solution
After testing various platforms and solutions, the Movement chose Talent Rocks.
While preparing the platform for launch, the team designed the structure of future training programs and began filling the platform with content. Employee lists were then uploaded via the Active Directory integration. The staff responsible for the platform were also trained to use it.
Only after that, once the app already had content, were all employees invited to the platform. It launched on September 1, 2024, and since then more than 6400 participants have signed in, with a return rate of 85%.
Training
Microlearning is used extensively on the platform: short videos and cards.
Over time, training webinars that help with day-to-day work were added, along with a library of best practices that colleagues actively share. Courses are available anytime and serve as a knowledge base.
All new participants follow a learning path that introduces them to the Movement. After that, there are learning paths in specific areas that may interest participants and help them build their competencies and skills.
New learning content is uploaded daily, and there are guidelines for updating materials.
Most employees log in to the platform daily or every few days to catch up on news or read chat messages. More than 3500 people take training programs every day.
Community
At first, the platform had a general chat for questions about using Talent Rocks. The organizers planned to shut it down a few weeks after launch. But it turned out to be a popular place to communicate, so the chat is still running.
Topic-based and regional chats were added as well, where employees of the Movement of the First get to know each other, talk and share experience. The platform is most popular with employees from remote regions — for them, it’s a chance to find like-minded people and share their best practices.
In the first five months, participants posted more than 4200 webinar comments,
40,000 messages and tens of thousands of likes.
We got not just a learning platform but a hub that brings together employees of the Movement of the First from every region of Russia. Here they can gain new knowledge as well as get help and support from colleagues.
Gamification
To boost engagement, the platform has a gamification system. Participants automatically earn points for actions on the platform, such as completing courses or attending webinars.
Points can also be awarded manually, for example for participation in in-person or online events. There is a single leaderboard for all regions. At the end of 2024, the 20 participants with the most points received useful gifts.
Summary
The learning platform solved several educational challenges for
the Movement of the First at once and opened up broad opportunities for deep, meaningful communication among project participants.
In the first 5 months
app users
webinar comments
chat messages
people take courses every day
Sergey Burmistrov
EdTech methodologist“It all started with a branded demo app we prepared for the Movement of the First team. It was a real product they could test and show to leadership and a focus group.
Then came a period of preparing the necessary documents and signing the contract. Once the administrative issues were settled, work on the platform began.
Together with the Movement of the First, we split the work into two parallel streams: the Talent Rocks team handled branding the sections, creating user groups, setting up Active Directory sync to load users automatically and training future administrators to use the platform. The client’s platform administrators then uploaded all the necessary content.
Thanks to running these processes in parallel, less than three weeks after the project kicked off, all 6700 users had access to a platform fully loaded with content and started learning.
Today, in addition to technical and methodological support, the Talent Rocks team is rolling out new functionality for the project and expanding existing features.”