Learning at BT Group, Simon's story

We’re passionate about learning at BT Group, and we want to create a space where our colleagues can develop their tech skills and learn new ones too. That’s why we’ve launched our Digital Campus, an online learning platform for our colleagues here in Digital.

We sit down with Simon Yu, Senior Digital Governance Manager for Digital at BT Group. He shares his top tips on using platforms like Digital Campus and how he’s made learning a core part of his week.

Hi Simon, why don’t you tell us a bit about what you do at BT Group?

I work in the COO team within BT Group’s Digital unit. I head up the Digital investment governance team, focussing on ensuring our budgets work in the smartest way they can.

So, what have you been using Digital Campus for?

I manage a small team, so I’ve been using it mainly to improve my leadership and management skills, and some of the courses on there have really helped me understand challenges faced by some of my colleagues across the business.

That sounds great, have you used it to learn something new too?

Yes definitely, it’s also been a gateway for me to upskill in agile ways of working and how to use platforms like Jira effectively!

What does Campus mean to you? How has your experience been using the platform?

The best part for me is the ability to track your progress, it’s great motivation to be able to look back at the time you’ve managed to invest in yourself. It also gives me the ability to pick and choose the areas I want to focus on, so I’ve chosen 3 specific areas and it tailors its recommendations around this info, so I don’t need to scroll through loads of options to find what’s relevant to me.

Any other favourite features you’d like to share?

I’ve really found a lot of benefit in using it to encourage my team to dedicate time to their learning. We’ve worked together to build Digital Campus learning into their development plans and used it to pinpoint learning areas. As a team, we sit down once a month to recommend articles or courses to each other, in lots of ways it’s almost been a social tool for us.

That’s a great way to use it, how important do you think learning is as your progress in your career?

I think we never stop learning really, if you look at the tech industry for example, new advancements are always popping up. If you can dedicate the time, it’s a great way to get ahead of the curve. Using this new knowledge helps prompt interesting discussions, I’ve found that some of the courses I’ve completed have encouraged open two-way discussions with my team.

How often do you use Campus?

I try to dedicate 30 minutes to learning each week, this can change though. For instance, if a course is an hour, I’d rather complete it in full and maybe skip the next week, but a weekly 30 mins is a good ballpark to aim for! I’d like to get to a point where I’m dedicating 2 hours minimum each month to learning.

What’s your top tip on managing your priorities to make time for learning?

The way I got started with Digital Campus was actually through listening to podcasts on my commute. It’s really easy to track this listening on Campus and add in some of the skills that it might be relevant to. From there, I started using the recommendations to tap into shorter articles that I started reading on short breaks and that developed into spending time on longer courses and eventually became part of my daily routine.

That’s really interesting, so it doesn’t need to feel like a big commitment to get started?

Definitely not, you can pause courses and fit it in around your schedule. I’ve often found that I’ve been able to use breaks between meetings to spend time on Campus and start using that learning straight away!

Thanks Simon.