Learning Content
Within our Learning Services business, we don’t rely exclusively on our consortium of learning providers to supply the learning content our clients require. We also produce a substantial amount of our own, courtesy of our in-house Learning Content team.
This team is responsible for taking subject matter expertise from across our entire business and turning it into high quality, engaging, interactive learning content. It focuses on areas that KPMG has long been active in, such as operating model transformation; internal controls; and risk and regulation. However, it also covers topics such as technology and digital; leadership and management; and ESG (environmental, social and governance).
Supporting transformational change
Ever since our Learning Services business was formed, much of our work has been connected with major transformational change.
Typically, such projects have a workforce transformation component to them. In order to know how to navigate their way around a new technology platform, for example, or to understand a new set of internal control processes, staff often need to be upskilled or reskilled.
This is where our Learning Services business steps in, either delivering training directly to a client’s workforce or providing the organisation with learning content that they can deliver themselves.
Whatever the circumstances, having learning content that’s relevant, accessible and contextualised is invaluable in making sure that organisational change happens smoothly and efficiently.
It’s the final piece in the puzzle in terms of maximising a client’s return on their transformational investment.
A multi-skilled team
Based both on and offshore, our 60-strong Learning Content team comprises instructional designers who specialise in distilling large amounts of highly technical material into high quality, interactive, accessible learning content, tailored to an agreed set of business and learner objectives. These designers work alongside other specialist content developers, graphics developers, visual designers, project managers and video production experts.
When the team first took shape, much of its work focused on training people to use the new technology systems that typically underpin a major operating model transformation. Training on various International Financial Reporting Standards soon followed. It was around this time that the team began producing digital learning content, allowing learners to dip into their learning activities when, how and wherever was most convenient for them.
Today, it offers digital, virtual and face-to-face content, alongside social, peer-to-peer learning groups and interactive activities, such as hackathons. These are all blended into a single, seamless learning experience.
Not happy with simply producing high quality content, the team also prides itself on the accessibility of the materials it produces. In fact, clients – and even other providers – now approach our team for guidance on how to improve their learning accessibility.
How it works
There are two ways in which the team produces learning content. In the first, it works closely with subject matter experts in other parts of our business to build new learning products, responding to gaps in the market that have been identified. Having scoped out what an ideal programme of learning might look like, it then gets to work storyboarding, scripting, designing and building every element of that programme before we launch it into the market.
The resulting product is licensed to multiple organisations. It can be offered as an entirely off-the-shelf product or it can be partially contextualised to a specific client’s needs, providing an element of bespoke learning. Typically, around 80% of each product comprises core content that never needs to be changed. However, the remaining portion can be tailored to an individual client’s circumstances, whether that be through using relevant, real-life case studies; referring to internal processes or systems; or deploying their branding, phraseology and tone of voice.
The second approach involves completely bespoke content production. This approach is typically used when a client asks for our assistance with a current learning challenge. With this approach, all the design work is geared towards producing something completely tailored to that specific client’s learning requirements. The intellectual property contained within that product will belong solely to the client, meaning that it is never sold elsewhere.
