Labeyrie Fine Foods, the number 1 brand specialising in premium and trendy foods, is launching a company-wide, soft skills learning and development programme for all employees, working in partnership with elearning specialists GoodHabitz.
The programme, implemented at two UK sites, Lyons Seafood and Farne Salmon, will be offered to over 1000 employees. It will complement existing technical, food safety and H&S based compliance training, with the intention to eventually replace classroom style learning for soft skills.
Labeyrie has invested in soft skills learning to expand the personal development opportunities available to employees and because they believe it will enhance their understanding of core technical skills.
GoodHabitz is a subscription-based elearning system offering everything from mindfulness and presentation skills to assertiveness training, handling appraisals, digital marketing skills, social media awareness and English language for non-native speakers. At Labeyrie, 30% of workers have English as a second language and are interested in improving their business and written English skills.
Based on a Netflix style format, GoodHabitz courses are designed for easy access on a mobile device and to support ‘microlearning’. This means users can dip into any topic and get what they need in short bursts, which improves information retention and is more accessible for busy workers to see benefit from.
GoodHabitz is already working with a number of brands in the food and drinks industry, who want to provide accessible personal development opportunities for all their employees to benefit from.
“There is a lot of energy in the company for learning, we have a very open culture and are very focused on creating development opportunities for everyone that works here. We believe that if people can take responsibility for their own learning and choose what interests them personally, they will be more engaged in developing themselves, more personally fulfilled and more likely to want a long-term career with us,” says Steve Wain, Learning and Development Co-ordinator at Labeyrie Fine Foods.
Labeyrie will be creating time and dedicated learning spaces for all employees to take advantage of GoodHabitz courses whilst at work, in addition to each staff member having remote access to complete courses in their own time.
This is an important aspect of any optional elearning programme. GoodHabitz research into employee attitudes towards learning highlighted that people prioritise being given personal development opportunities at work over a salary increase, with 80% of people across all sections of society ranking this as more important.
Having a ‘chance to improve and grow personally’ was ranked #2 in a list of the top 3 employee priorities, with ‘having time for friends and family’ listed as #1 and pay rises at #3.
Initially, Labeyrie will be promoting a “Super 6” of key course themes to introduce employees to GoodHabitz, with monthly ‘inspiration events’ running throughout the year to highlight what is available. The launch topics will include assertiveness and influencing skills, coaching and mentoring, mindfulness and stress management, business English, how to be a good manager and effective communicator.
“Assertiveness and influencing are two skills we ran a workshop on last year and it was very popular, so we know people are interested in developing themselves. We always try to promote from within and as people rise up through the company, these capabilities are very important,” says Steve Wain.
Based on initial programme data, Labeyrie will work with GoodHabitz to define the success criteria with which to measure how the company is benefiting from elearning.