We wanted to give the programme an edge that would appeal to today’s Generation Y employees. Video helps because it’s an engaging medium and something that our target audience are used to consuming all the time.”
You’ve recently launched a global training programme for all of your graduate employees. Tell us a little bit about that.
We want to develop people to become business advisers to our clients. This programme will help us to create a new generation of more rounded professionals who can work across our different Transaction Advisory Services offerings. It’s aimed at enhancing the business capabilities of our junior advisors. The programme we’ve developed features a mixture of classroom training and online study, based on case studies and simulations.
And you chose to use video to deliver the behavioural elements of the training?
Yes, we wanted to give the programme an edge that would appeal to today’s Generation Y employees and make it more memorable and effective than other standard training programmes. Video helps because it’s an engaging medium and something that our target audience are used to consuming all the time. Also, it’s entertaining. We were aware that we were dealing with a younger group of employees and we tried to cater for their needs.
So you approached Video Arts?
Yes. We thought Video Arts would give us the opportunity to give the training a different spin and make it different to everything Ernst & Young had done in the past. It gave the training an edge and added a different perspective. We looked at the Video Arts website and after weighing up the different options we decided to use their Digital Library product. It lets us deliver micro-learning training that is visual and entertaining. And it gives us the flexibility to stream video anywhere in the world, at any time: and as many times as we wanted.
What video resources are you using?
We chose FISH! to begin with as it’s an entertaining film that offers a fresh perspective. It gives our programme a new dimension. The videos are really different. They’re quite funny which makes it easier to absorb the messages and they were interesting food for thought for our participants.
And you’re deploying this on a pretty big scale?
Yes. We started with train the trainer sessions across Europe, Australia, the US and India. That gave us a pool of 100 trainers who could deliver the programme to cohorts of 30 junior advisors at a time through Ernst & Young’s regional training hubs in Europe, the Americas and the Asia-Pacific region.
This is obviously a long-term change programme but what’s the initial feedback?
FISH! is a very powerful film. The four key messages ‘Be There’, ‘Make Their Day’, ‘Play’ and ‘Choose Your Attitude’ transcend cultures: everyone ‘gets it’ The feedback we’ve had so far has been really positive.
