Phoenix Group, the UK’s largest long-term savings and retirement business, has cemented its commitment to creating a rich and diverse working environment by investing in mentoring technology with Connectr to elevate its employee learning and progression.
Phoenix Group was seeking a progression, development and retention tool that delivered impact at scale across their pension savings and life insurance brands. Adopting Connectr’s technology, Phoenix Group will deliver agile, always-on support that connects employees across the entire business to grow their knowledge and expertise through peer-to-peer mentoring programmes.
Leveraging Connectr’s platform, Phoenix Group is creating a unified culture of support and leveling the playing field for employees of all backgrounds to succeed in their career. Phoenix Group has a genuine focus on delivering its ED&I commitments through the lens of employee development and progression, and are active members of Progress Together – a recently launched membership body for firms within Financial Services to drive socio-economic diversity at senior levels.
The Connectr platform will provide a virtual community for employees of all levels and disciplines across the business to connect with well-matched mentors that accurately represent their goals and ambitions, and to receive tailored 1:1 support for succeeding in their career progression. Phoenix Group aim to have 1,000 users onboarded onto the platform within the first 12 months, with a 30% increase in users each year following this to support its growing 8,000 headcount.
Pheonix Group’s platform has been designed bespoke to its brand and is continually adapted to ensure it is easy to use and reminiscent of social community platforms, optimising user engagement.
All mentors are guided through the process and given training on how to maximise the impact of an effective mentoring relationship. Users are able to engage with as many mentors as they wish, and agree trackable goals with their mentors to meaningfully drive their career development and progression. Mentees can choose to set long-term, in-depth mentoring relationships with scheduled meetings, which can be supplemented with a lighter, more agile approach through in-platform messaging to have their questions answered through mentoring in the moment of need, so as not to wait for the next meeting. The Connectr platform live data reporting will allow Phoenix Group to track both engagement levels and impact of its mentoring programmes using real-time insights to identify any opportunities for optimisations.
Simon Reichwald, Chief Progression Officer at Connectr, said: “Phoenix Group really understands the power of mentoring technology as a key tool in driving the career development and retention of its people.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Phoenix Group to bring their mission to life. We’ve been hugely impressed by their commitment to ensuring employees across the business are aware of Connectr’s technology (almost 200 signed up in the first free days!) and how it will drive their learning, development and progression across their career at Phoenix. This is paramount at launch stage and means we can hit the ground running in developing their teams, and provide support and progression opportunities from the start. I’m delighted to see the impact this partnership will deliver to Phoenix Group.”
Jo Szulikowski, Head of Talent Development at Phoenix Group, said: “Phoenix Group’s purpose is to help people secure a life of possibilities, and we want to make sure all our colleagues have the opportunity to learn, develop and grow. Mentoring has a huge role to play in that and Connectr’s agile platform enables our colleagues to connect, share their expertise and knowledge and build relationships. Whether this is mentoring in their moment of need, or over a longer period of time, we want all our colleagues to choose mentoring on their terms and to feel supported at every stage of their journey with us.”
For more information visit www.connectr.com/products/employee-engagement