How E.ON UK is shaping a new and sustainable world with LinkedIn Learning
SUCCESS STORY
Exploring new paths and shaping change through learning and development
Energy and solutions provider E.ON UK is a leader in terms of sustainable energy. It is hard at work with its customers to address their needs and those of the environment. Its core focus is providing smart, sustainable and personalised solutions for customers in homes, business and across entire communities.
With such a huge task on its hands, E.ON UK believes that progress can only be achieved by taking a partnership approach to change. Furthermore, the energy company believes it’s important to explore new paths. This is just one of E.ON UK’s core values, and it’s an important one. Why?
E.ON UK is committed to creating a place of work where everyone can feel supported, respected, and nurtured so they can learn, grow, and succeed.
In 2022, E.ON UK made a strategic shift towards LinkedIn Learning to solidify learning and growth as the cornerstone of its Employee Value Proposition (EVP). The objective was to cultivate a transformative mindset within the company, inspiring employees to reassess their perceptions about energy and the environment and look forward to a digitised future. This cultural shift was crucial, as E.ON UK believed in the importance of its team being equipped with the latest information and essential skills needed to navigate tomorrow’s world.
THE CHALLENGE
Making learning accessible to all
Democratising development opportunities within the organisation has been a key focus for E.ON UK’s people development team. It was paramount that a comprehensive learning strategy supported E.ON UK’s approach to workplace diversity and inclusion (D&I). A positive learning culture was established.
Jay Peaurt, Digital Learning Consultant at E.ON UK, explained why creating fair opportunities to learn is important to E.ON UK: “Rather than having learning and development opportunities only available to people who have been flagged as talent, we have created inclusive development networks that are open to everyone.”
E.ON UK required the right learning platform and LinkedIn Learning met all of E.ON UK’s requirements. Jay continued: “LinkedIn Learning has been very important in helping make that new move work. It has enabled us to create networks, providing materials and content so that our employees can take charge of their own learning, develop themselves, and decide which skills they want to learn.”
THE SOLUTION
Providing equal opportunities for people to learn and grow
E.ON UK started with 1,000 LinkedIn Learning licences and created five development networks – Women in Leadership, a Digital Network, Engineering and Technical, Future Energy Leaders, and general careers development.
“In the beginning, we gave our development networks early sight and access to LinkedIn Learning before inviting our wider workforce to access the platform,” Jay added. “LinkedIn Learning formed part of our EVP. It provided an opportunity for colleagues to learn and grow and develop themselves to acquire numerous skills for the future.”
LinkedIn Learning was integral to E.ON UK’s goal – to make learning and development opportunities available to all those who wished to learn.
When LinkedIn Learning was first adopted, Chris Norbury, then Chief People Officer, was an advocate of the platform and played a central role in getting executive-level buy-in. He knew that giving employees access to a comprehensive learning platform was paramount and now as CEO of E.ON UK he strongly believes in the importance that skills development plays in the organisation.
Connecting a workforce with carefully curated content
Jay said: “We trialled different platforms. We had some incredibly active users, and they gave us really good feedback about which platform performed best. We gave them early access to LinkedIn Learning so they could promote and engage with the teaser campaign when it launched on our intranet system.”
E.ON UK’s intranet system – Connect – was vital to the launch of LinkedIn Learning. The learning and development team created a teaser campaign including videos that created intrigue then came the big reveal, which utilised Connect, and learning influencers.
“We went into a hybrid phase of promoting content to our active users,” commented Jay. “We also used LinkedIn to push targeted campaigns to those who hadn’t signed up to LinkedIn Learning, we targeted specific business areas, and created learner challenges – the first of which took place during National Inclusion Week.”
For every learner challenge, the learning and development team created a learning pathway. Curated content was split over five days. Every day, the Learning and Development Team encouraged employees to watch a series of short videos. Each challenge would feature themed content, such as sustainability, and sometimes it would be linked to holidays and celebrations such as International Women’s Day.
Jay explained further: “Just before Christmas, we did 12 days of LinkedIn Learning with all the content themed around Christmas. It was a good way of having something new to say rather than: Oh, do you want access to LinkedIn Learning?”
Staying knowledgeable and relevant in a constantly changing world
LinkedIn Learning is integrated into E.ON UK’s learning experience platform (LXP). “Having LinkedIn Learning integrated into our LXP has really helped,” Jay continued. “It means we can build learning paths within the LXP that draw on our own content, LinkedIn Learning content, and content from other providers, such as Microsoft.”
“I find it brilliant that we can provide a platform that's got everything on it and see what people are actually looking at. It gives us a lot more insight. Some of it confirms what we already thought we knew, but there are always surprises too.”
Jay loves the “ease” of LinkedIn and praised the platform for the efficiencies it brings. “It is so easy to use,” he commented. “Before, we always had to create content internally, which took lots of resources. It took time, and we could only focus on limited skills, based on what we knew, what we were already experts in, or what we could find experts on. We needed more agility. So, for example, if people did want to know about generative AI, yeah, we've dipped our toe into that area, but we're not experts in it. But because LinkedIn Learning is constantly updated, you can jump on there and find a course.”
Jay concluded: “LinkedIn Learning gives us agility and flexibility and so what I am most proud of is being able to give everyone at E.ON UK who wants to learn – from field workers to technicians – access to the platform.”
Main products used
THE RESULTS
97%
Engaged workforce
97% of LinkedIn Learning licences have been activated
2,000
Embracing learning
More than 2,000 courses have been completed
56,000
Creating a learning culture
56,000 videos have been watched
In their own words
“At E.ON, we believe our people are core to the success of our business today and into the future. That means we want to retain and attract the very best people, and so it’s key that we provide colleagues with tools to learn and grow. LinkedIn Learning provides colleagues with access to expert training across a range of topics, helping to ensure our people can learn the skills and further their knowledge in the areas that interest them the most and support the development of the skills we need across the organisation.”
“LinkedIn Learning has played an important role in the evolution of our development offer by providing easy access to a range of quality content which we have used to both enhance existing learning programmes and develop new ones. Working with LinkedIn Learning has increased our overall agility to respond to change while developing the critical future skills that our colleagues require.”
“Because LinkedIn Learning is constantly updated, you can jump on there and find exactly what you want. LinkedIn Learning gives us agility and flexibility and it’s so easy to use.”
What the learners say
“I recently returned to work after having a stroke and have found LinkedIn Learning very helpful in retraining my brain. I would highly recommend to others as there are so many topics available, and the training is top quality.”
“LinkedIn Learning has helped me to benefit from a very wide range of educational resources with a personalised learning path and engaging content. I'm able to gain a new skill, knowledge and expertise at my own pace, being able to track my progress makes the learning on the platform more interesting, effective and efficient.”
“I’m currently on an analytics learning path, but have plenty of others saved for the future. I’m mainly wanting to develop my Data Science skills at the moment. To be honest, I’m totally hooked on LinkedIn Learning!”
About E.ON UK
E.ON is leading the energy transition; providing smart, sustainable and personalised solutions for customers at home, in business and across entire towns and cities. As part of the E.ON Group, it is one of the foremost energy companies in the world.
Industry:
Utilities
Number of employees:
5,001-10,000 employees
Headquarters:
Coventry, UK