Digital driving
The Digital Academy has been established at Woodside to provide the digital skills which will enable the workforce to “drive their learning”.
Steering your car could soon be a thing of the past if, as futurologists predict, autonomous vehicles take off. But driving your learning will always be in vogue for those wanting to get ahead.
That’s why “Drive your learning” has been adopted as the mantra for the Digital Academy – a Woodside initiative aimed at providing digital skills so our workforce has the capability to effectively leverage technology in their roles.
“Digital Academy helps you learn for tomorrow, today,” explains Digital’s delivery excellence manager Lakshmi Muthiah.
“Everyone wants to focus on self-improvement and becoming a better person, but we also need to improve our digital skills.”
Digital Academy, in conjunction with LinkedIn Learning, provides a hugely varied range of personal and professional development courses.
“From the highly technical skills, through to the softer skills such as emotional intelligence, it has something for everyone,” says Lakshmi.
“The vision for Digital Academy is to promote a culture where continuous learning will be a part of our everyday life,” says chief digital officer Shelley Kalms.
“It will encourage you to be curious; to own and control your learning; and help with learning while working.”
Digital Academy will complement existing Woodside learning channels and tools, such as those organised by People and Global Capability (P&GC).
“It’s an innovative system of self-paced improvement,” explains P&GC’s vice president Jacky Connolly.
“It allows everyone the opportunity to build knowledge in bite-sized chunks, because it’s available anywhere, anytime, on any device.”
Lakshmi says that in addition to its curated content, LinkedIn Learning is also a platform for Woodside to deliver its own custom content.
“Initially focusing on the digital basics such as cyber safety, Webex and Office365, Digital Academy’s LinkedIn Learning will enable us to maintain the security of our critical information and to realise the benefit of our industry-leading technologies,” she explains.
Shelley says our digital basics have three pillars: tools like Webex and Office 365; our practices or the way we work, such as agile and design thinking; and concepts like data science and process automation.
The aim is for Woodside’s employees to grow their digital dexterity, or their level of skill and awareness, with our core digital tools, ways of working and concepts.
“Within the Digital Academy, you will find learning paths that support each of these three pillars,” she notes.
Executive vice president Sustainability Shaun Gregory points out that Woodside has invested in high tech infrastructure.
“We need to make sure we leverage what is available, and the Digital Academy helps everyone build their skills to get the most out of the tools,” Shaun says.
“The nature of work is evolving fast, so the way we learn, develop and update our skills needs to keep pace.”
To start with, Digital Academy is focusing on what we need to know to ensure we are digital savvy — that is, to use all the amazing technology to its fullest potential to ensure we are effectively leveraging technology in our day to day roles.
Digital Academy is available to everyone.
“Now is the time to start looking for ways to improve yourself. So start driving your learning with the Digital Academy,” says Lakshmi.
“Just ask Willow, ‘tell me about Digital Academy’.”
Read the full Q1 2020 issue of Trunkline here.
