Winner - OpenLearn Impact Award for Supporting Business and Organisational Goals
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) underpinned its Learning at Work Week with its three core values of taking care, learning and being collaborative, and created valuable learning experiences in key strategic areas including accessibility, sustainability, gender pay and the future of the workforce.
In particular, the Employee Forum (who organised the week) wanted to provide all staff with accessible opportunities to engage with value-led learning, to have ‘hot-topic’ business conversations, to engage and collaborate across a multi-site and hybrid-working organisation and to access bite-size learning opportunities. They worked collaboratively with the RCP’s cultural transition champions, who focus on value-led projects, to ensure that the sessions aligned with the organisation’s values and business topics, and built on the momentum of projects.
Colleagues could access 37 sessions across six domains – skills, languages, education, activities, fitness and lunchtime learning. Over 50% of activities were led by internal guest speakers, creatives and facilitators. External sessions featured a visit from Therapy Dogs UK and cartoon workshops. By delivering bite-size activities in person, virtually and in hybrid format, and spreading the sessions across the week, the Employee Forum aimed to increase accessibility to colleagues working remotely and office based in an organisation with variable workloads.
The RCP used all of its internal communication channels to promote its week and what was on offer. The Employee Forum created a Learning at Work Week landing page on the RCP’s new intranet and advertised this in its internal newsletter, email signatures and digital screens, regular staff emails and meetings. Managers also cascaded information to their teams and encouraged them to take part. As colleagues work in a hybrid way, the emphasis was on online and email communications, and internal channels. There were almost 1,000 visits to the dedicated page and over 500 bookings – a 70% increase on engagement from the previous year.
With over 40% of staff attending at least one session, the week was the RCP’s most engaged and attended Learning at Work Week to date. Colleague feedback shows how much they valued the week, commenting on the opportunity to collaborate, be creative and learn something new, as well as the benefits to wellbeing of taking part. The organisation has demonstrated its core values and increased skills, confidence and understanding of the RCP’s approach to a range of areas including careers, inclusive workplaces, collaboration and wellbeing.
The RCP’s Learning at Work Week 2023 - YouTube