Navigating a multi-year tech workforce transformation
The Challenge
Preparing teams for the future during a pandemic
As Marc Andreessen once said, software is eating the world—and it’s no different for banks. Customers are continually moving toward more digital forms of banking, which means the success of any modern bank depends on its technology organization.
ANZ Bank needed a skill development partner that could work alongside vendor partners, product builders and other organizations the company uses for training. They chose Pluralsight Skills because of the platform’s vast library of content and alignment with their workforce strategy.
Data moving to the cloud, new software engineering techniques, improving cybersecurity—these were all, naturally, things ANZ Bank was focused on. But they also needed to think about how they work, and adopt more agile, leaner practices. The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated the need for ANZ leaders to provide educational opportunities for their teams that could equip them for whatever the future held.
Who they are
ANZ Bank provides financial services to three main groups: people who want to buy and own a home, people who want to start and run a small business, and people who want to move trade and capital throughout the region.
ANZ Bank by the numbers
years old
Global offices
Headquartered in Australia
employees
Having a growth mindset is essential
“The whole idea of staying in school is fundamental, I think, in any industry. Because how we work in the future is going to be different to the way it was in the past. [There are] skills we’ve got to continuously sharpen.”
Gerard Florian, Group Executive for Technology
The Solution
Bringing people together to advance their skills with The Capability Academy
The technology area of ANZ’s business is a shared service, acting as a consultancy within the bank itself. The accessibility of Pluralsight Skills enables self-guided learning for technical skills and soft skills to support their people and encourage growth opportunities. Everyone in technology—a group over 1600—now has 16 hours of dedicated learning time per year.
ANZ Bank built The Capability Academy as a key part of its plan to drive business success and deliver more value to customers through the use of technology. The goals of The Capability Academy are to create a continuous learning culture and future-proof ANZ’s workforce. They’ve had a very successful past year, and even won a Pluralsight Best in Tech Award for their efforts!
ANZ’s holistic approach to skill development helps them stand out from other organizations. Their leaders are thinking bigger than just getting people to take a course or two. Teams aren’t just learning new things—they’re learning how to learn in a way that’s ongoing and ever-evolving. ANZ understands the importance of making personal development a part of its culture. Because every employee wants to have a good career, make meaningful contributions and form social connections.
ANZ recognized early on that access to great learning had to be effortless. Leaders were able to test out some of their ideas about skill development through Pluralsight’s Free April campaign, which gave teams access to free skill development content and experiences for an entire month. They hosted enablement sessions and created learning pathways that were aligned with business objectives—so everyone felt supported in their transition to a new style of learning. Within 48 hours of Free April beginning, they’d exceeded their learning engagement goal. That showed ANZ how seamlessly skill development could be a part of the flow of work at the company.
ANZ Bank continues to run different initiatives and campaigns to engage learners, such as its Learning Expo, which had over 7,000 registrants learning from 15 international speakers on topics like the neuroscience of optimizing your brain. Feedback from employees who attended was fantastic.
Employee demand for Pluralsight Skills access has continued to increase over the last 12 months, and ANZ has an upskilling rate that’s 200% faster than the financial industry average, which is no mean feat!
The key benefits of Pluralsight for ANZ Bank
200% faster upskilling
than the financial industry average
Increased proficiency
in important technologies
Culture of learning
Holistic and sustainable
Plan growth
that scales with adoption
The power of Skill and Role IQ
“The Skill IQ and Role IQ feature in Pluralsight is so powerful for helping our people to understand what their current proficiency levels are in the different areas of their focus. Again, when we look at the critical roles and critical skills that we have identified in ANZ, our people are shifting, in terms of their proficiency, in those areas over time. It’s another great measure of the impact Pluralsight’s having on our future success.”
Glenn Carter, Product Owner and Tech Capability Team Leader
The results
Continuous learning at ANZ
ANZ Bank will continue to advance its multi-year journey by aligning skill development efforts with the critical needs of the business—however they may change. They’re equipping people to become great learners, which has benefits extending far beyond their work for ANZ Bank.
Things are evolving and changing rapidly in the learning and capability space at ANZ. The business is also moving forward in a very rapid way, which means the way leaders measure success is changing. Pluralsight Skills gives them the modalities and mechanisms they need to support their campaign designs.
Supporting learners at every stage
“Pluralsight has been a strong partner throughout this entire process. It’s not just about the platform—it’s gone way beyond that. It’s thinking about how we can elevate our learning so that it becomes part of the flow of work. Pluralsight helps us to identify different ways of supporting that in our business and providing the right behavioral nudges along the way.”
Glenn Carter, Product Owner and Tech Capability Team Leader