Through the TELUS Leadership Philosophy (TLP) and Learning 2.0 (both launched in 2010), our team member learning practice offers a collaborative, connected and continuous journey where we employ many different types of education, from classroom, online learning, books and coaching to user-generated content, such as videos, blogs, micro-blogs and wikis.
As the TLP evolves over 2012, we will continue to explore innovative ways to instill this philosophy and expand on the delivery of effective leadership development while managing costs.
Josh Blair, executive vice president – Human Resources provides a brief overview of the TLP and explains how it supports our culture and contributes to our success. Watch now.
Throughout 2011, we saw a rapid rise in participation through the use of social learning as well as a resulting increase in job-related performance. Online corporate learning opportunity visits and interactions increased by six per cent. In 2011, we surpassed our Return on Learning target by a basis point achieving a 69 per cent score (average of our four quarterly results).
Among the learning opportunities we offered in 2011 were:
- Engaging Conversations – A personal leadership webcast series designed to support team members in owning their careers and growing their leadership skills. More than 200 team members attended
- Food for Innovative Thought (FIT) – FIT is a learning series, under the banner of the TELUS leadership philosophy, designed to help team members take responsibility around their leadership capabilities and careers at TELUS
- Strategic Negotiations – Strategic negotiating skills can be taught and, with practice, can become habit. This course presents an effective approach that is flexible for the individual and situation
- Presenting and Influencing New Ideas – Participants in this workshop develop skills that improve their communication in meetings, on the phone and in traditional presentation sessions
- SkillSoft and Books 24x7 – This online learning opportunity makes videos, courses and books available to all team members at any time. In 2011, team members accessed a variety of learning options including over 1,500 video-based programs, 13,000 online books for an estimated 233,618 pages read, over 2,600 business skills courses, printable job aids and much more
- Career Development Portal – More than 1,000 pages of interactive information about Career Paths, Learning Paths and Career Guidance exists. In 2011, the portal registered 215,000 page views
- Lead and Grow – For four to six weeks, this series gave team members a forum to learn and share thoughts and opinions about collaboration, products and services, Customers First initiatives and quality.
Our learning and collaboration space continues to be one of the top 10 sites visited by team members. It helps team members, leaders and learning professionals understand Learning 2.0, development options, and resources supporting learning/career development. It includes a manager support guide, information on developing learning plans, and maximizing learning investments as well as a centralized link list to help TELUS team members find information easily. The site is now the standard entry point for all learning inquiries, streamlining the process for learning and collaborating at TELUS.
In 2011, TELUS continued to support the learning requirements of the business, enabling team members to excel in their roles through formal, informal and social learning opportunities. We exceeded our targeted spend by $0.8 million for the year and we look forward to supporting our team members’ growth and development in 2012 with an increased budget commitment.
Learning investment1
| $ in millions | 2012 budget | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amount spent | $23.1 |
 $20.4 |
$17.0 | $22.3 |
| 1 | Does not include TELUS International. |
Formal learning courses completed1
| Estimated completion (000s) | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 |
|---|---|---|---|
| e.Learning | 256 | 216 | 137 |
| Instructor Led | 48 | 30 | 52 |
| Total | 304 | 246 | 189 |
| 1 | Does not include TELUS International. |
Return on Learning
The Return on Learning metric is gathered through an online survey distributed to 8,000 random TELUS team members at the end of each quarter. The survey asks team members whether the formal, informal or social learning that they have taken has helped their performance on the job over the previous period.
Through baseline surveying in 2009 and 2010, we established our initial target of 68 per cent for 2011. We exceeded our target with a score of 69 per cent. Our target for 2012 is 71 per cent.
Return on learning
| Year | 2012 Target | 2011 Actual | 2011 Target | 2010 Actual | 2010 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Return on Learning | 71% | 69% | 68% | 63% | 66% |
External recognition
In 2011, we received two awards for innovation in learning:
- For the sixth time, TELUS received a BEST award, the American Society of Training and Development’s highest recognition. TELUS was one of only 32 companies from around the world to be recognized and the only Canadian organization that has won the award more than twice. Winners demonstrate enterprise-wide success through employee learning and development activities that are clearly aligned with business goals that drive execution on strategy
- For the second consecutive year TELUS received the Corporate University Leader of the Year award by the Corporate University Best-in-Class Awards (CUBIC). The CUBIC awards were established to honour, recognize and promote internal training organizations and corporate universities that set standards of excellence in a variety of categories.
Welcome to TELUS
This program provides a comprehensive overview of our history, strategy, tools, culture and performance expectations, including an introduction to the TLP, Customers First and the four TELUS values. The overview defines the code of conduct and behaviours that TELUS expects to see demonstrated by all team members on a daily basis.
In 2011 the program expanded to introduce the Welcome to TELUS Passport, an online handbook to support new team members through their first 90 days. The wiki introduces the social tools available and includes a learning gallery and guide about TELUS’ culture, career, incentives and tools.
New team members can access the program information and attend sessions from their own locations without incurring travel costs. The three-day session includes guest speakers from the business who not only share information about TELUS, but also about their own personal journey at TELUS. These sessions use a blend of virtual learning platforms in order to introduce tools team members will use in their new job, including live meeting, conference calling and social networking. In 2011, we delivered 21 sessions to 906 participants.
Welcome to TELUS program components are also made available for regional customization to new team members internationally.
Scholarships
Our commitment to education
As a major employer of educated Canadians, TELUS has a stake in helping Canadians access post-secondary education. Accordingly, TELUS offers post-secondary scholarships to dependent children of current TELUS team members. Our program provides:
- 12 awards of $2,000 each for full-time students entering the first year of their first bachelor’s degree program
- Two awards of $5,000 each for full-time students currently enrolled in post-secondary studies in engineering, communications, information technology, computer science or business at the bachelor’s or master’s level.
These awards are available for one academic year. Candidates are selected by a committee of Canadian university and college representatives chosen by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada.
Academic performance, extracurricular activities or volunteer/community involvement and the quality of reference letters submitted are the primary criteria when evaluating applications.
In 2011, we processed 87 applications and 14 winners were chosen. In total, TELUS provided $34,000 in scholarship funding.
In 2012, we intend to maintain the program with no changes planned.
Collaboration
How we learn and grow together
Across the organization, TELUS team members continue to embrace social media tools to connect and collaborate about our business, new ideas and industry trends, which is encouraging innovation and increasing engagement.
In 2011, we introduced several new and enhanced social media capabilities to our corporate intranet, Habitat. Some highlights include:
- Habitat Social was launched as the gateway to collaboration capabilities at TELUS. Through this suite of tools, team members can discover wikis, blogs, micro blogging and video sharing all in one place
- Habitat Social also includes best practices on how to use these internal social media platforms, and then lead others to drive adoption and engagement across the TELUS team
- TELUS’ internal micro blogging community, Buzz, grew to more than 15,000 members
- Team member video sharing continued to grow in 2011 with more than 700 videos uploaded
- Team Sites and MySites, powered by SharePoint 2010, were rolled out to the TELUS team in October. MySites encourages informal networking and skill sharing across the organization, and will be the foundation for a personalized team member experience.
There will be an increased focus on collaboration in 2012, as teams leverage social media tools like Microsoft SharePoint to strengthen connections and enhance work processes. To learn how we are using social media to interact with our customers, visit the Customer section.
To learn more about TELUS’ internal approach to social media, Watch now.
Closer to the Customer
In 2011, as part of our focus on putting customers first, 1,600 leaders participated in a one-day Closer to the Customer (C2C) event providing them with an opportunity to listen to our customers and learn from our frontline team members – enabling them to draw a line of sight from the customer to their roles and decision making process. Since the first C2C event in 2010, more than 40 process or policy changes have been implemented, contributing to the significant seven per cent improvement last year in our consumer market Likelihood to Recommend score. This has presented itself as a great opportunity for team members to listen, learn, recommend and implement solutions that will benefit our customers. In addition, this program has allowed team members to collaborate with their colleagues, increase their understanding of our business and to further develop their leadership skills.
HR Closer to the Customer
C2C events will continue in 2012. The Human Resources (HR) leadership team will leverage the success of these events by introducing a C2C event where HR leaders will spend a half-day with a frontline colleague in an operational area of HR. The aim of this initiative is to strengthen team member engagement and enhance the customer experience across the organization.