Skip to main content

Westpac and Deloitte’s Award-Winning Collaboration

Prepares Future-Ready Workforce

Today’s work landscape is rapidly evolving, with accelerated demand for digital and data skills. In fact, the World Economic Forum predicts that almost 50% of all employees may need reskilling by 2025. 

Westpac Group recognised this growing need and sought to tackle the challenge of upskilling their people through a company-wide Data and Digital Capability Uplift Program, a visionary initiative shaping a digital-first future across the organisation. 

The goal was ambitious; empower thousands of employees across six countries with contemporary digital and data competencies in an interactive, self-paced, blended learning journey, with multiple delivery formats to ensure flexibility, inclusivity, and accessibility in the flow of work.

"Westpac’s purpose is creating better futures together for all our people, customers and communities. Our Data and Digital Capability Uplift Program highlights Westpac's commitment to ensuring our people have the skills they need now and into the future." 

Sandra Casinader, Group Head, Enterprise Learning and Capability at Westpac Group.

Deloitte was engaged to help create a learning journey that needed to overcome the often-encountered challenges of workplace learning; people simply do not have the time to fit learning into their workday; keeping people engaged throughout a learning journey; and the simple fact that different people learn in different ways.

To address these challenges headfirst, the team took a learner-first, adaptable approach to the design and delivery of the learning program. A series of short and sharp learning assets were developed, enabling learners to engage with the resources and apply the tools in the flow of work. QR codes enabling easy mobile access to feedback loops were also leveraged. 

The successful design of the program was developed with an intersection of expertise - with 150 executives, leaders, and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from both Westpac Group and Deloitte collaborating intensively. Discovery sessions aligned on learning outcomes based on critical priorities, and rapid pilots allowed for feedback and improvements before launch.  

Special attention was paid to democratising learning, breaking barriers of hierarchy and role. This was a pioneering move for Australia’s first bank, establishing an improved learning culture, including how data and digital learning could be consumed across the organisation, rather than something from which only leaders would experience and benefit. 

Each learning pathway was primarily self-paced in nature, enabling employees to complete their learning experience across 8 – 16 weeks. The 8 learning pathways included over 380 unique, bite-sized digital and blended content assets, mapped to 29 skills and eight foundational and intermediate pathways. These skills ranged from ethical data analysis, visualisation, storytelling and decision making; and customer-focussed problem solving, critical thinking and service design; through to better understanding how the application of enabling technologies can enhance the employee and customer experience.

To meet different learning styles, resources including videos, infographics, cheat sheets, podcasts, quick reference guides and ‘tiny task’ activities were developed to create a sense of familiarity, connection, and contextual relevance for learners.  The learning program also included a “Pathway Selection Tool”, to help learners identify the specific learning pathways which would meet their interests, learning goals, proficiency levels, and needs of their role. 

The involvement of 90+ SMEs was multifaceted, from shaping content to featuring as talent in videos, podcasts, and communications, fostering a deeply relevant learning experience for Westpac’s people. They also provided virtual instructor-led experiential activities, including facilitating learning communities with experts and peers, via Ask-Me-Anything sessions and discussion forums. The learning program also included Masterclasses, allowing each person to develop in-depth mastery in key skills that Westpac Group identified would deliver optimal impact if uplifted at scale across the enterprise.

"The program integrates diversity and inclusion as a core principle, aligned to our extensive Inclusive Design Guidelines. Designing it in this way makes a big difference for our people, and we are very proud our program is a benchmark for inclusive design industry wide.” 

Cat Malcolm, Enterprise Design Practice Lead, Westpac Group.

To maximise awareness and adoption of the learning program, a “Discover the Future” change communications, and activation strategy was developed. Supported by a distinct narrative and visual identity, the campaign leveraged change champion networks, leader advocacy, digital behavioural nudges, and practical activities throughout the program to deliver optimal participant engagement, application, and embedding of newly learned skills.

The learning program was complemented with community activation via MS Teams and guided by a dedicated moderator who was available to provide hands on support to facilitate discussions and encourage participants through practical application in their journey.

Maintaining relevance throughout the learning modules was also a critical consideration given the continued rapid pace of change in technology. Content in learning modules was designed so it could be easily adapted to evolve in line with industry developments (e.g., AI/Gen AI resources, ESG case study using design thinking principles to create carbon tracker feature in the customer facing app.)

“Westpac and Deloitte Learning, Data and Digital SMEs completed an extensive co-design process to customise the learning content to enable contextual relevance for difference audience groups whilst still delivering consistent messaging, understanding and new ways of working across the Enterprise.” 

Anthony Sprawling, Director, Workforce Activation at Deloitte.

The learning pathways are progressively being rolled out over a 2-year period before becoming a Business-As-Usual (BAU) program available to all Westpac employees. Westpac Group is leading the way in driving a culture that focuses on upskilling their people for the future by enabling employees to use storytelling to influence outcomes with data, embrace new tools for collaboration, and to make better, data-driven decisions with greater certainty.

The program's innovative design has already earned esteemed accolades, securing the Platinum Award for 'Best Learning and Development' from LearnX. 

An overwhelming 89% of employees said their learning experience expectations were met, with a remarkable 72% citing they were readily applying newfound skills at work. Senior leaders echoed this sentiment, noting positive behavioural shifts and increased confidence in adopting new technologies and ways-of-working.

“One of the design principles for the program is around driving greater autonomy of choice among learners both in how and when they engage with the learning and through choosing their learning pathways based on individual needs and development goals. This autonomy has driven behaviour change and greater embedment of learning outcomes.” Deepti Sachdeva, Head of Enterprise Capability & Transformation at Westpac Group.

76% of participants noted that they appreciated they weren’t rushed and could choose the pace at which they covered the pathway content based on their capacity. This has been deemed an important measure and considered an already significant indication of Westpac’s learning culture shifting to achieve more positive outcomes. 

This successful collaboration is helping to transform Westpac’s workforce into a future-ready cohort equipped with cutting-edge data and digital skills and provides a contemporary format for large corporate and public sector organisations to develop high impact learning experiences which deliver genuine participant, business and customer outcomes.

4 Essential Take-Aways for Business Leaders 

The collaboration and co-design between Westpac and Deloitte throughout the journey, showcases the power of leveraging diverse skills to drive innovation and organisational impact. This also allowed a breadth of existing internal and external learning content to be rapidly assessed and adapted by a blended team of learning, data and digital experts across both organisations, before building bespoke content to meet any remaining gaps and/or Westpac specific needs.

Designer Teamwork Brainstorming Planning Meeting Concept; Shutterstock ID 300720026

Before embarking on a learning program of significant scale, leaders must dedicate time to clearly define the strategic objectives, align them with organisational goals, and ensure a cohesive strategy across all levels of the enterprise. The program was sponsored by Senior Business Executives within the Data and Digital domain to ensure strategic alignment. This strategic alignment not only sets clear objectives but also ensures that the learning program is well-integrated with the organisation's overarching vision, enabling seamless execution, and maximizing the program's impact on the workforce. 

businessman hand working with new modern computer and business strategy as concept; Shutterstock ID 276609200

Embracing multiple formats such as videos, podcasts, visuals, and other bite-sized content, fosters an inclusive environment where every individual can engage with the content in a manner that best suits their learning style and pace. Prioritising inclusivity ensures that the learning program resonates across diverse demographics within the workforce, fostering a more comprehensive and equitable skill development journey for all. 

Beautiful fashion girl learning on line with a tablet and headphones sitting on a bench in the street

Robust measurement frameworks validate impact and aid the continued evolution of learning materials in line with learner and business needs. Prioritising both data-driven insights, and qualitative feedback – not just at the end of a learning journey but during the development phase, pilot testing, and final learning journey - is crucial for informed decision-making and iterative enhancements to continue to strengthen the program. 

Cropped image of businessman using digital tablet with colleagues at desk in office; Shutterstock ID 192016229; PO: LPX15962-01-01-0000; Job: Potentials for D.com; Other:  Alexa Steinberg

How Westpac staff are applying the learning journey?

 

  • Communication and Storytelling with Data: Analysing and interpreting multiple data sources and formats to create compelling data narratives, emphasising the story or the 'so what' behind the data and how it could positively inform business decisions and solutions.
  • Utilisation of Tools and Technology: Extensive use and application of Westpac’s suite of digital tools throughout each learning pathway; including PowerBI for report creation and data analysis, and Microsoft Teams functions like Polls and Whiteboards for increased collaboration and engagement and more effective meetings. 
  • Improved Data Literacy and Analysis: Reducing risk through a more structured approach to accessing, managing, maintaining and ethical use of data and to clearly articulate the difference between correlation and causation when using data.
  • Design Thinking and Ideation Techniques: Using creative design and critical thinking frameworks, empathy maps are being used to identify customer journey pain and gain points, before using ideation approaches to collaborative test, iterate, and refine solutions.
  • Strategic Decision Making with Data: Utilising data to credential and influence the adoption of new ideas, increase stakeholder engagement, and to enable leaders to make data-driven decisions instead of relying on assumptions.
  • Integration into Ways of Working and Projects: Applying acquired knowledge to daily work tasks like demand driver analysis, report creation, project management, team meetings and stakeholder consultation.
  • Innovation Through Enabling Technology: Understanding how technologies are currently being applied in the customer value chain, and considering how emerging technologies can be innovatively applied to achieve better employee, organisation, and customer outcomes.

Below are just some outstanding feedback from Westpac staff on the Data and Digital Capability Uplift Program:

"I really thought the pathway was the best self-paced course I've done." 
Jason Dickson,
Senior Change Manager, Chief Transformation Office (CTO), Risk
"Very useful, allows me to look at work tasks from a different perspective to enable better outcomes."
Svitlana Yaroshenko,
Project Management Office Analyst, CTO
"If you want your team to be more creative, high performing and have fun at work, or if you aspire to be a leader in the digital world, the pathway will offer good inspiration." 
Wendy Chan,
Senior Management Information Specialist, Customer Services and Technology (CST)