Profit Challenge
Everyone can change the bottom line
Challenge
Build employee awareness of their impact on profit
Post-pandemic, our client initiated strong cost-saving measures, but stopped short of reducing the workforce. Analysis from the cost-saving task force showed managers lacked knowledge and understanding of the potential financial impacts of their decisions beyond basic revenue and direct costs. Our client wanted to improve profit and loss (P&L) knowledge, business acumen, and financial competency among senior level employees within non-financial roles. Previous learning had not achieved required competence levels.
Challenges:
- Build managerial competency to drive the business toward our client’s growth goals
- A need for people to identify opportunities for cost savings, increased revenue, and profitable differentiation of products and product lines
- A client requirement for a solution with a more modern approach to online learning, which employed custom learning scenarios, game theory, and competition that would motivate the learners
Solution
Our solution was multi-level gamified learning, which required learners to answer questions regarding financial decision-making across the company and product life cycle. This would enable learners understand the big picture story of how their decisions could impact the company P&L.
Using adult learning principles, we designed a ‘guided discovery’ approach to the learning, with an ‘ask, don’t tell,’ framework. This encouraged learners to build on any pre-existing knowledge of the subject by answering a series of topic-relevant questions and conduct an independent exploration on any revealed gaps in their understanding.
The course is divided into missions and sub missions. The learner meets colleagues from different teams who are facing challenges and helps them to make the most effective decision in each situation. Each decision made results in a score and the learner gets immediate feedback detailing the reasons behind the result, so they learn why their choices are effective or not.
Each mission also results in a financial impact. The missions are designed to show managers how their decisions impact profitability. The learner earns high profit, low profit or a loss, depending on the quality of their decisions. Each profit or loss adds to or subtracts from an accumulative total, representing the learner’s contribution to the organisation’s profitability (or loss) at the end of each mission.
Results
Our client reported that they were able to achieve, and in some cases exceed, their cost-cutting and margin targets.
The course evoked intrigue and enthusiasm amongst the audience, HARMAN was able to achieve its audience participation goal without the intense level of follow-up that is typical for this kind of training. This new approach, compared to their conventional classroom-based learning, far surpassed initial expectations. Our client told us:
- Learners felt highly engaged and motivated by the course, giving an overwhelmingly positive rating of 4.8 out of 5, and several employees asking for more of the same in the future
- Stakeholders were ‘very impressed’ with the solution
- The way both employees and upper management perceived corporate training changed, resulting in less friction around the subject, and a positive influence on employee morale.
Brandon Hall Awards
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