CASE STUDY

Helping Reuters create a culture of excellence

Reuters is the world’s largest international multimedia news provider – trusted by professionals and individuals across the globe. To maximise the impact of its customer service training, Reuters wanted a skills assessment solution that would keep staff continually engaged and motivated to excel. Delighted with our previous work for them, they asked us to develop them a fully bespoke tool.

Brief

Reuters wanted a mechanism to help customer service staff at all levels identify training needs in themselves and others. They also wanted it to motivate staff to continually develop and apply their skills. It was essential the system dovetailed with existing operations, safeguarded sensitive data and communicated Reuters’ values clearly. And they needed all this fast.

Key points

  • Bespoke platform

  • Assessment tools

  • Interface design

Solution

The platform we designed for Reuters collects self-ratings and 360° assessments on key competencies before and after their Advanced Customer Training programme. It presents the data to individuals, teams and managers as visually engaging, actionable reports.

As ed tech specialists we were able to ensure that the requirements gathering and development focussed on exactly how the tool would support learning outcomes.

The graphical reports allow at-a-glance comparison of competency profiles over time, as well as across and between teams. With its robust definition of roles and groups, the tool lets:

  • individuals compare their results to their team’s aggregate profile

  • managers benchmark staff against each other, and compare their overall team profile to other teams.

We worked closely with the Reuters learning and development team to fully understand their workflows and use cases. This was vital to ensure the tool provided impactful reporting without compromising data protection – which included setting minimum data point rules that ensured the origin of 360° ratings couldn’t not be inferred.

The clear and open communication we maintained with the Reuters team throughout – including twice weekly work in progress presentations – ensured that we were able to meet their brief quickly and thoroughly.

Within just a few weeks of the project’s inception we handed the fully operational tool over to Reuters – who assumed full ownership.

“We sought a rapid development tool which enabled effective assessment with minimal resource effort. Can Studios delivered on every count: a competitive solution with the ability to tailor aspects to our specific requirements.”

Kelly Thomas
Global Certification Manager, Reuters

Results

By applying sound design and educational principles we created Reuters an assessment experience that gets staff thinking and talking about their skills, and inspires them to want to achieve more.

Making sure the tool was user-friendly, appealing and positive has contributed to an environment where staff take individual and collective responsibility for performance, by:

  • encouraging employees to reflect on their developing capabilities

  • making staff conscious of their responsibility for continuous improvement

  • creating a culture of open feedback

  • encouraging staff to put new skills into practice.