Case study
InterContinental Hotels Group
Delivering a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to 3,000 of IHG’s first-level leaders across the globe using Learning Pool Platform
Key results
1500+
42
30000+
50%
12 %
Background
InterContinental Hotels Group is a multinational hospitality company headquartered in Buckinghamshire, England. It operates a family of 17 trusted hotel brands, including Holiday Inn® and the luxury InterContinental® resorts and provides more than 884,000 rooms globally to over 150 million guests each year.
Challenge
In 2018, IHG carried out a strategic review that highlighted the need for its workforce to have more productive conversations within the workplace. To meet its ambitious growth goals, it was clear that IHG needed its entire leadership base to embark upon a program of training in the art of holding a ‘brilliant conversation’.
Solution
Partnering with Learning Pool, Learning Pool Platform was selected to deliver a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) to 3,000 of IHG’s first-level leaders across the globe. Learning Pool Platform was used as the central delivery tool for the MOOC, with IHG curating content to create a central hub of activity around which a global ‘brilliant conversation’ would take place. Each week, participants would log onto Stream to find a new set of content alongside various conversation challenges. The MOOC was built by IHG’s L&D team using integrated videos and curated content from internal and external sources, for example, TED talks.
Throughout the MOOC, leaders viewed content and contributed back via Learning Pool Platform to earn XP points in order to complete that week’s level. Every week, IHG also created a live webinar event (integrated directly into Learning Pool Platform) using WebEx. This demanded scaling to cope with all 3,000 participants logging onto the platform simultaneously; something the platform coped with comfortably. These recordings were then made available via the platform for participants to watch again on-demand.
Lastly, IHG created contribution challenges that required participants to add their own user-generated content to the platform and reflect on what they had learned. Using Learning Pool Platform’s built-in video capture technology, leaders uploaded short videos of themselves answering questions and demonstrating how they would adopt the conversation principles discussed during the MOOC.
Results
The response from leaders was phenomenal; more than 30,000 were generated throughout the MOOC and more than 1,500 videos were added to the platform. These contributions came from colleagues in 42 different countries.
Measuring the Value of Social with xAPI
Following the MOOC, IHG was keen to measure the actual impact the learning had had on behavior. Throughout the MOOC, learning data was collected and stored in Learning Pool Learning Record Store. Retrospectively, Learning Pool’s data scientists were able to analyze the conversations to see how many people were actually doing something in the workplace by the end of the five-week experience.
Using an approach to measure the quality of online conversation in a learning environment (Cognitive Presence), Learning Pool was able to map the submissions to assess the quality of the reflective conversations on a 3-point scale.
Learning Pool LRS had provided a remarkable insight into the impact a social learning experience had had on individuals as well as the organization as a whole.
“The whole experience has allowed us to collate important data to inform several of our strategic initiatives to better support the business moving forward.”
Lianne Coriette, Global Director, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Wellbeing, Future of Work
Results
The hackathon resulted in over 4,500 comments being collected in Learning Pool Platform and these were mapped across key themes so the results and relevant action could be interpreted.
The hackathon informed several areas moving forward including:
- Informing IHG corporate leadership development programs & strategy by knowing how their leaders were perceived and the skills needed for the future.
- Informing process & behavioral changes across the organization by understanding what slows down their growth ambitions, helping them to get to the root cause of issues.
- Informing leadership conversations, education & training materials, as well as office engagement activities by hearing colleagues’ concerns and opportunities relating to returning to the office & adopting hybrid working.
About InterContinental Hotels Group
Use Cases
Upskilling
Industry
Hospitality
Audience
350,000
Employees worldwide
Location
Global
Products
