THE CHALLENGE

i-mens is an independent healthcare organization in Flanders and Brussels. No fewer than 11,500 employees make sure that everyone gets the care they need from the moment of their birth to the end of their life. The range of services provided by i-mens range from home nursing and family care to cleaning assistance, residential care and childcare.

Rosalie Bonte is Expert Talent within the i-mens HR team and her colleague Lotte Leybaert is Expert Customer Experience within the team Customer Circle. ‘Lotte and I have been working on i-mens’ customer-centric ambition and have been primarily looking at how we can convey this to all our colleagues and how we can help them to be as customer-centric as possible,’ says Rosalie.

Developing and rolling out an ‘i-mens customer-centric’ training program for a very diverse group of 11,500 employees was no easy task. The ‘i-mens customer-centric’ course is mandatory training for everyone; management, the support staff and for those working out on the frontline. It has to be sufficiently accessible, both technically and in terms of content, for this very diverse audience.

THE VISION

The ‘i-mens customer-centric’ program started out as a two-day session in the Plopsaland theme park where employees helped to establish the foundations of i-mens: its purpose and the customer intentions. ‘After the two-day session, I visited all the offices to explain the chosen purpose and customer intentions to middle management. That took six months,’ Lotte explains. To include the large group of frontline employees, there was a need for a more efficient solution that could be rolled out throughout the entire organization.

‘We used a different authoring tool to create an e-Learning for our frontline employees based on our two-day session,’ Rosalie continues. ‘But we came up against the limitations of that tool. If we wanted to give our people a clear picture of what we wish to stand for as an organization, we needed a digital solution that was clear, interactive and easy to use.’

And so, at the end of 2023, FLOWSPARKS came into the picture.

THE SOLUTION

The original plan was to split the ‘i-mens customer-centric’ e-Learning into two paths: one for support staff and one for frontline employees. But when Rosalie and her team saw what is possible with FLOWSPARKS, they concluded that one program for everyone was perfectly feasible.

‘At first, the broad capabilities of FLOWSPARKS can make it feel somewhat less intuitive,’ Rosalie attests. ‘But once you are comfortable with it, FLOWSPARKS offers so many possibilities in terms of layout. There are plenty of templates to help you present your learning content accurately and in an engaging manner. You can add a lot of interactive elements and vary the types of questions. In this way, you can make any e-Learning very accessible and fun even for a very diverse audience.’

1. Go for a phased rollout

After Rosalie and her team received training, they started working with FLOWSPARKS. ‘That was quite a bit of exploring, trying things out and starting from scratch again,’ she says. ‘Our previous tool had a fixed layout, which meant we had fewer options and less need to think about how we wanted to present the learning content. With FLOWSPARKS, we have to make sure that our digital programs are visually engaging. Thanks to the many templates, that has never been a problem. And fortunately, we could always call on our coach at FLOWSPARKS when we needed assistance.’

The digital training ‘i-mens customer-centric’ was the first e-Learning that they converted to FLOWSPARKS. And there are a whole lot more to follow. This is being done on the basis of a priority list in which the most relevant are obviously given priority.

2. Mix digital and physical

i-mens strongly advocates a hybrid approach. Lotte: ‘To make sure everyone is onboard, we have to alternate digital learning with classroom learning. After all, not everyone is equally adept digitally or knows enough Dutch to be able to follow the digital learning modules in full. A mix of physical and digital is necessary. Since many employees are often working alone out in the field, there is also a very clear demand for connection with colleagues.’

‘It is also important that it is not just theory, but that we present a story and that we help people to think about how they can put customer-centricity into practice. Physical sessions are really helpful in that,’ Rosalie adds.

3. Integrate e-Learning into a bigger picture

e-Learning at i-mens is part of a bigger picture. ‘With this e-Learning, we are laying the foundations for what we as an organization are striving to achieve in terms of customer-centricity,’ Rosalie says. ‘New employees are sent it in the first month after joining the company. And it is repeated in a physical welcoming session during their onboarding.’

‘The third step is the M-check game that they play with their team. With questions and exercises, we challenge them to think about customer-centricity and what concrete steps they can take themselves. Our internal newsletters also have a role, featuring cases that show what customer-centric practices mean at i-mens. In all of this, e-Learning is the first, essential element,’ Lotte continues. ‘With e-Learning, we want to enthuse newcomers and inspire them with the right drive to become part of our story.’

4. Make the most of what FLOWSPARKS has to offer

Since most of the 10,000 frontline employees do not have laptops, it is a must that the online learning courses look good on all devices. And that they are easy to navigate on tablets and smartphones. That is why Rosalie and her team spent a great deal of time in preparing and formatting the ‘i-mens customer-centricity’ e-Learning.

‘If you take the time to experiment with the templates and layouts, you can make each e-Learning attractive and varied so that people enjoy going through them. The great thing about FLOWSPARKS is that you can create e-Learning entirely in your organization's branding. So we spent quite a bit of time beforehand in formatting our own templates.’

It is usually a content expert (Subject Matter Expert) who provides the content. Rosalie and her team then look at how they can communicate that content visually and pedagogically. ‘We have one digitalization expert in our team who manages our LMS and is in contact with our coach at FLOWSPARKS and with our IT department. The authors of our e-Learning modules all belong to Team Talent. We have a background in psychology or pedagogy, and we are pretty creative. We love being involved in it,’ Rosalie says with a smile. ‘We can also count on the support of the Communications Department. For example, they helped us with our avatar videos and provided a tool that we could use for that.’

To make the e-Learning modules even easier to understand, i-mens will soon start experimenting with the integrated AI translations provided by DeepL.

THE IMPACT

‘There are always people who are less enthusiastic about digital training, but nevertheless we have had very good feedback about the ‘i-mens customer-centric’ e-Learning. People describe it as fun, clear and understandable. They like that we bring them into our story in an interactive way,’ Rosalie says.

Lotte: ‘For this training program, we received an average score of eight out of ten from our colleagues. Accessibility was seen as the biggest asset, and that means a lot when that comes from a very diverse audience, who are not always equally digitally savvy or equally proficient in Dutch.’

Rosalie has clearly seen what FLOWSPARKS has changed at i-mens. ‘Our digital training courses are now of a higher quality and look more attractive. The end result is always very easy to use and intuitive.’