“The capacity to learn is a gift; the ability to learn is a skill; the willingness to learn is a choice” - Brian Herbert

At Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), learning is a gift we wish to give to each employee, a skill that is inculcated at each level and a choice that takes on new forms with each passing year. As a content powerhouse, Sony Pictures Networks (SPN) MUST always be digitally agile and future ready. Therefore, one of our foremost priorities is to inculcate a digital-first mindset across the organization and the workforce. A digital mindset which is not merely the ability to use technology but is a set of attitudes and behaviors that enable employees and the organization to foresee evolving possibilities.

With significant shifts taking place rapidly and more to come, leaders and employees alike need to look at how to manage these shifts and operate in a manner that propels business.
As we’ve progressed through the years, we have taken pride in ensuring that learning never stops. The pandemic did not change this, in fact it only strengthened our endeavour to deliver innovative, cutting-edge learning interventions for upskilling our employees constantly.

And as our efforts in learning and development get recognized, this accolade by the Brandon Hall Group for Best Learning Program Supporting a Change Transformation Business Strategy, awarded for our intervention under the banner of “Gearing up for a Digital Reset”, is a big honour for SPN.

The primary objective for the organization is to empower its talent pool to act as Change Champions, who can lead and drive digital transformations and help SPN retain its position as a market leader. SPN sought to drive outcomes that built greater innovation within the organization to balance the urgencies of the current landscape with the priorities of the future; reduced cost of operation while adding greater value to the ecosystem, and sustainable growth for the organization, irrespective of external challenges. To achieve these outcomes, the organization realized the need to equip its talent pool with the capabilities of the digital age, the ability to imagine strategies keeping in mind digital priorities and to build a digital culture within their teams and businesses.

As a part SPN Academy’s ‘Pivot Up’ banner which focuses on the development of talent across the network, we partnered with KNOLSKAPE on a 4-week journey for over 150 employees with their proprietary research-based framework – Clearing the Digital BLUR (Boundaryless Organizations, Limitless Digitization, Unlimited Innovation and Relentless Iteration). The framework was designed and customized specifically to help us accelerate our digital transformation journey and enable talent to drive the organization-wide digital strategy.

A blended approach of business simulations and online platforms was used to deliver an engaging and effective program. As part of this learning intervention, we wanted to focus on driving home the key digital-first competencies - Digital Leadership; Networked & Sense-Making Leadership; Driving Innovation through Design Thinking; Agile Leadership, and Digital Change Championing. These competencies covered all the major skillsets that were needed to create active digital change leaders in the organization.

Despite the challenges of the pandemic such as concerns about engaging learners in the virtual delivery mode, the impact speaks for itself. Not only were all sessions of the program rated very highly by the learners, but the active engagement rate for the overall program also went as high as 80%. More importantly, the organization was able to witness a marked shift in the attitude of the workforce towards working collaboratively with the intent of launching the organization into its next growth phase. The process of implementing solutions and learnings from ‘Pivot Up’ started soon after the program saw its close, with 10-15% of the employees engaged in monitoring and tracking the implementation. Finally, the program has been crucial in enabling our employees to Think Consumer First and elevate the experience for consumers and partners associated with various brands at SPN. As an organization, we are now better equipped to continue building an integrated product, with digital content, analytics, and excellent viewership experience forming the new core. The journey started with the relaunch of Sony LIV 2.0 in July 2020 and is going strong, with over 100 million app downloads and counting.

As next steps, we aim to launch this training intervention to a broader audience, upskilling a larger talent pool to take up a breadth of roles in the digital age, keeping them further engaged and continually challenging their intellect.

Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the blog are solely that of the author, and not necessarily of Sony Pictures Networks India and/or its subsidiaries and affiliates.