Kenny Henderson
Each month e.learning age talks to someone carving out a career in the industry. This month, Graham Buck talks to Sky's head of talent development Kenny Henderson.
John Major was mid-way through his tenure at Number 10, a teenage David Beckham had yet to make his England debut and British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) had been formed just four years earlier when Kenny Henderson joined the group’s customer operations team back in 1994. As he recalls, his previous experience had been limited to working for his family’s business after studying accountancy at university.
Over the subsequent 17 years, he has seen Sky’s technology switch from analogue to an all-digital service in 1998 and the launch of Sky Plus, its personal video recorder (PVR) service in 2001.
“People often ask me why I have remained so long with the same employer, but the variety of work that I’ve been given at Sky means it hasn’t felt like working for one organisation but rather four or five different companies,” says Henderson.
“Over the years I’ve held several different roles and moved over into training and development full-time about 10 years ago. Training was something I’d already had some experience of as an operational manager responsible for coaching and training staff.”
Although some might assume that a media group such as Sky would tend to focus its training on young employees, its head of talent development operations says that he works with individuals who joined the group either before or at the same time as he did.
“At the other end of the scale, I’m also training 16-year-olds in our contact centre operations and recent graduates.”
BSkyB made its first move into e-learning six years ago and in 2010 a total 120,000 hours of online learning were completed. The group has developed a range of programmes and believes that many topics are best tackled online, although it has also maintained a role for classroom training.
Two of the main online learning initiatives have been the Sky Development Studio and a programme entitled Get Up To Speed.
The studio, launched three years ago, is a web-based learning portal that was developed internally and is readily available to Sky employees in all departments and at all levels. “It enables them to borrow a book or CD from our resource centre and they can download the information and participate in e-learning,” explains Henderson. “So there is variety of ways for users to access learning, which is aligned to different levels.”
He adds that the aim of the studio is to make learning accessible to everyone within the organisation whatever their level, which for example means that a cameraman has equal access to the learning tools available to management.
Since the launch, Sky has conducted an annual employee survey rating satisfaction levels on its training and development resources and the overall score has improved each year.
Sky’s e-learning programme has more recently been extended to outside users and now has a total audience of 22,000 to 25,000 people, of which around 16,000 are permanent staff.
“Typically it receives between 7,000 and 10,000 visits per week, but in early November that figure jumped to 12,000,” adds Henderson.
The trigger for the Get Up To Speed initiative was to shorten the length of the classroom-based induction course for new employees, by moving the product-based and compliance-based learning content online. Before the launch, a trainer could regularly present the induction course to a group up to 15 new employees with varying levels of knowledge and understanding about Sky
“We were keen to accelerate the process and reduce the attrition rate, where some people may feel that they can’t keep up and so drop out at an early stage,” he adds. “So our pre-learning portal is a great way for individuals to get up to speed in a particular subject before day one.
“Another important element is that users also gain an insight into what working for Sky is actually like. By watching the videos, people get a feel for the organisation that they are joining ahead of their first day in the job.”
Henderson says that his numerous different areas of responsibility make for a great deal of variety in his working day. “So one day may be focused on overseeing our online learning content and platform; another in managing the supplier base that helps with our leadership programme.”
It’s this variety that he singles out as the best aspect of the job, and the personal development that comes from involvement in so many projects.
And the worst aspect? “At the risk of sounding clichéd, I’d really struggle to find things that I don’t like about my job. I wouldn’t have been here for 17 years if I didn’t enjoy it.”
Graham Buck is a reporter on e.learning age