How Talent Rocks helps the Russian Railways Corporate University bring together active young employees
The Youth Projects Center of the Russian Railways Corporate University chose a mobile app as the digital platform for its programs for young employees. The app helps organizers with both in-person and remote training.
Client
Russian Railways is the largest employer in the country. Young people make up a large share of employees across the railway network: the company has about 300,000 employees under 35.
Russian Railways is committed to developing young talent and runs many programs that involve young people in solving corporate challenges, building a safety culture and encouraging innovation.
Challenge
One of the Russian Railways Corporate University’s projects is the New Link youth competition. Thousands of young employees from across the railway network submit projects to improve the company’s management and operational processes for expert review. The best projects are refined, presented to senior management and put into practice.
In pre-COVID times, the main stages of the competition were held in person, and a mobile app was used for quick updates and participant logistics. Participants installed the app to keep up with the activity schedule, have constant access to organizers to resolve issues and get prompt updates on timing changes.
But in 2020, in-person meetings were impossible, and the mobile app became more than just a tool supporting the in-person program.
Russian Railways Corporate University
Our audience is young people, and the mobile format feels natural to them. Everyone can have the app on their smartphone.
Besides, although our entire railway network is computerized, many Corporate University program participants don’t work in offices — track workers, frontline employees and so on. For them, the mobile format is often the most convenient. All competition information, the latest news and program updates, communication with other participants and all learning materials are always at hand.
Solution
The app on the Talent Rocks platform became the project’s learning environment.
The app hosts the schedule and live streams. Organizers send push notifications reminding participants when a stream starts or homework is due, and collect feedback through the app. Learning materials, programs and presentations are posted in the app.
To keep the Russian Railways young professionals community active between live streams, the app runs trivia, quizzes and challenges. One example is the traditional “How My Day Begins” challenge: organizers invite participants to show how their day starts by posting a photo of a homemade breakfast or a video of their morning run. Participants earn points for taking part in challenges and being active in chats, and the most active ones receive branded gifts.
Russian Railways Corporate University
As the person mainly responsible for the educational side of several Youth Projects Center programs, what matters most to me in the mobile app is access to information about participants and speakers, a convenient schedule and the ability to post learning materials.
To make learning more engaging, we use video clips and video examples. Streaming video live is a bad idea since everyone’s internet speed is different, so the speaker says, “You can find the link to this video in the app.” That way, no time is lost and the program keeps its pace.
Outlook
Besides the New Link competition, the Russian Railways Corporate University runs other programs using solutions developed by the Talent Rocks team.
Thanks to flexible configuration of app modules, the platform helps address corporate training needs in both in-person and remote formats.
For in-person sessions, the administrator can add to the app, for example, a campus map linked to the schedule. Participants will see which room a session is in and how to get there.
For remote and blended formats, there are live streams in the app, plus self-paced programs and courses with knowledge checks.