Leaning into Learning: How Vocus Successfully Hardwired a Learning Culture

Vocus is a leading specialist fibre and network solutions provider, connecting people, businesses, governments, and communities across Australia and New Zealand to the world. After its founding in 2008, Vocus grew dramatically through a spate of high-profile mergers and acquisitions that not only gave it a bigger market share, but also a wider presence across Australia and New Zealand.

Vocus understood the importance of online learning early on. To ensure that every employee has equal access to learning opportunities while maintaining operational effectiveness and resource efficiency, Vocus chose to take learning online in 2016. 

Since then, Vocus has invested in growing and strengthening its learning culture. This has given employees a foundation of resilience to weather uncertainties like COVID-19—during which the organisation has seen its LinkedIn Learning licence activation rate climb by 5%, as many Vocus team members continue to prioritise their learning and development whilst working from home.

Anne Mihos, Learning & Development Manager at Vocus, outlines the organisation’s journey for us.

Learning to love learning

Vocus began working with LinkedIn Learning because it fulfilled the organisation’s need for a wide range of high-quality learning content available to employees anywhere and anytime. The Vocus Learning & Development (L&D) team used a mix of onboarding and marketing initiatives for the initial roll-out:  

• Get acquainted: The L&D team visited every office location to conduct in-person induction training sessions. This helped onboard employees quickly, and equipped them with the know-how to make the most of the learning platform.
• Get excited: After the introduction and induction phase, the L&D team focused on building interest and excitement through publicity collateral, promotions, activities, giveaways, and more.

“One Valentine’s Day, we ran a promotion with the tagline ‘If you don’t have a Valentine, go on a date with Learning’. It was fun and lighthearted, and we managed to get people talking about LinkedIn Learning, which was exactly what we wanted,” recounted Anne.

This approach not only made the prospect of learning fun for employees, but it also sent a clear top-down signal that the organisation is fully invested in their learning and development. This helped seed a learning culture that, over time, has become deeply embedded in the Vocus culture.

Learning made more meaningful

In November 2019, Vocus kickstarted a Skills Gap analysis project for its Infrastructure & Operations (I&O) team:

• The L&D team worked closely with the business unit to identify functional skill areas that team members could focus on deepening.
• These were mapped to LinkedIn Learning courses with help from the LinkedIn Learning team.
• The I&O leadership team was invited to encourage all team members to complete at least two related LinkedIn Learning courses within the financial year.

For I&O team members, this exercise helped clarify their learning needs in relation to their role, articulated the potential impact of learning on their job performance, and provided an actionable next step. Anne believes this contributed to the 21% increase in LinkedIn Learning licence activation rate that the L&D team observed in this period.

“At Vocus, we are fortunate to have a leadership team who sees the value of learning, but it is still important for us to constantly demonstrate how L&D is contributing to the business—the Skills Gap project is one such way. By drawing a clear connection between L&D and employee performance, we are reinforcing the conviction that learning is vital to the business,” Anne said.

For the full story, download the Vocus case study now.