TOLL

With an integrated workforce of more than 45,000 employees spanning across seven divisions and 1,200 locations, the ongoing management of learning and development programs for TOLL staff members was a cumbersome task.

Prior to 2008, training for staff members was organised by individual business units with team members sourcing training from a variety of providers including New Horizons Learning Centres. In an effort to increase the effi ciency and effectiveness of staff training, TOLL established TOLL People, a division responsible for the end-to-end management of training for all employees.

TOLL People is now the only division which integrates across all other divisions within the organisation, providing training services to over 45,000 internal clients.  For Laura Kennedy, the National Training Manager at TOLL, supporting a vast workforce has created unique challenges.

“The biggest issues we’ve faced were on the coordination side of things. We’re quite an ‘old school’ machine, so everything is very manual and tedious, which has significant impact on our team’s overall productivity. It was very diffi cult for us to capture which employees from what business unit have booked on training, as well as how they have booked and who their authorising manager is; amongst other details we’re required to track.”

The demographic of the TOLL staff members also posed a challenge for TOLL People team; “our customers, which are our internal business units, are very traditional; the average age would be 55+ so they tend to naturally be adverse to change. For that very reason, trying to communicate our offerings in a modern medium they understand, as well as having the ability to minimise the paper trail from both ends is difficult for our team.”

With these challenges in mind, TOLL People sought to create a nationally streamlined and consistent approach to training that more effectively engaged internal staff members and created greater learning outcomes.

In 2010, TOLL People reached out to several Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) in search of a preferred provider that could scale to the breadth and volume of training needs across their various business units. A key component of the selection criteria for TOLL was finding a training provider that could align with the national distribution of their various locations in order to adequately service training needs. Amongst several other providers, New Horizons Learning Centres was selected as the preferred partner for the delivery of Microsoft Office, Professional Development and IT courses to TOLL employees.

Laura Kennedy states, “New Horizons was chosen over other providers for the quality of their training, the frequency of publicly scheduled course dates, their brand reputation within the industry and the national scope. We needed a partner that could align with the majority of our business unit locations and head offices nationally; New Horizons has been able to successfully achieve this.”

Once the partnership was established, New Horizons set out to assist with some of the challenges the TOLL People division was faced with on a daily basis. After a consultation with TOLL’s dedicated Account Manager and analysis of existing processes, a custom training portal was proposed as a potential solution. The goal for both parties was to provide a central medium for all TOLL employees to access course information, as well as provide a streamlined booking process which facilitated the registration and approval process using a more modern mechanism.

New Horizons worked closely with TOLL’s National Training Manager, Laura Kennedy, to develop a custom portal which maintained brand standards and acted as an internal TOLL People initiative. With custom registration forms and a database-driven process in place, TOLL People could ensure all necessary data was being trapped and tracked for internal reporting purposes.

Increased Productivity

With the implementation of a custom training portal the TOLL People team has experienced a significant increase in overall workplace productivity due to the improved course registration and approval process.  

Strategic Focus

With less time required for the coordination of training services, TOLL People has been able to focus on more strategic initiatives including the development of a training matrix in line with the “One TOLL” objective, an organisation wide initiative aimed at achieving the TOLL standard of operation.

Facilitated Communication

The TOLL training portal has provided an easily asscessible, online platform which has enabled the communication of training services to internal clients through a central source of information.  

Enhanced Engagement

Through the utilsation of online technologies, the custom training portal enables TOLL staff members to take more control over their own learning and development. With a significant reduction in time dedicated to training administration, TOLL People is able to provide greater consultation regarding the best training solutions for individual needs.