How Talent Rocks supports Hals-Development Group’s blended learning programs for managers
When it comes to training managers — busy people overloaded with information — the most important task is to provide a convenient communication channel and quick access to learning content anywhere, anytime. Hals-Development Group solved these challenges with a mobile app built on the Talent Rocks platform.
Client
Hals-Development Group is one of Moscow’s top 5 developers and one of Russia’s top 50 employers with up to 1,000 employees. The company fosters a human-centric corporate culture and invests heavily in talent development.
The company runs its own training center, Hals Academy, which brings together a wide range of training programs. In July 2021, Hals Academy launched a new project: “The Power of the Team,” a three-module, six-month program for training and developing managers, designed to become one of the cornerstones of the developer’s comprehensive development system.
Hals-Development Group
Mobility and flexibility are very important when organizing training for managers, so we needed a convenient technical platform.
With the mobile app offered by the Talent Rocks team, colleagues can check the training session schedule, review presentations, rewatch a webinar recording or study the trainer’s materials on their own at any time.
Challenge
“The Power of the Team” runs in several parallel cohorts and lasts six months. The program uses a blended learning format: online sessions with a business trainer alternate with self-study and group project work.
The training organizers faced a challenge: all program information and learning content had to be stored somewhere that participants could always access. The corporate portal wasn’t suitable because it had no mobile version, so information couldn’t be viewed on a smartphone.
Solution
An app built on the Talent Rocks platform solved this problem.
Each participant has the program schedule on their smartphone (with a separate schedule for each group), along with links to join the live stream.
Between trainer sessions, participants reinforce their knowledge through microlearning in the “My Courses” section. Each course module is broken into short steps that can be completed “in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee.” A step can be a text, a short video lesson or both.
A separate section holds video recordings of sessions with guest experts and a library of recommended reading.
To further motivate program participants, the app includes individual and team leaderboards. Points are awarded both automatically for actions in the app — completing a course or test, filling out feedback forms and so on — and manually, as a reward from the trainer for activity during online sessions and effective project work.
The news feed and push notifications in the app are used for timely updates and reminders about project deadlines, surveys to complete and so on, while chats are used for communication within teams.
Meanwhile, the Talent Rocks instructional design support team took on all the routine work of uploading content to the app, adapting program materials to the microlearning format and administering the app.
Hals-Development Group
The Talent Rocks solution is convenient and intuitive. Program participants figured out the technical side very quickly and dove right into learning.
Talent Rocks is also easy to administer: changes and updates to the program are made within an hour.
Results
In their feedback forms, participants praised the high level of organization of the training program. Keeping participants focused and engaged for six months is no easy task, but the Hals Academy team succeeded by using modern technology.