Jun 16 2006
Virt@ula, for “La Caixa”
In 2003, the author of this case study chose to study “la Caixa” for an Implantation of eLearning corporative for the thesis of his doctoral. From this thesis, submitted in March of 2006, numerous case studies and technical notes later submerged: one of these being the following study.
“la Caixa”: excellence in business banking
“la Caixa” was funded in 1990 with the merger of two well established companies, in 1844 and 1904: Caja de Ahorros, Monte de Piedad de Barcelona, Caja de Pensiones para la Vejez y de Ahorros.
In 2004 they were the 3rd largest Spanish Financial Organization through outside resources, and the number one savings bank in all the important banking parameters:
CONCEPT
Volume of banking business
237,154 MM €
Total client resources
143,912 MM €
Credit investment
93,242 MM €
Cards in circulation (MM units)
7,8 MM units
Data from tax year 2004
La Caixa had a large number of banking offices. In November 2004 they had 4706 offices across Spain and this pattern developed very quickly
They had 6800 ATM´s
Over 24,000 employees with all types of regulated training
From 1990, every year 1500 new employees joined the bank, who had to be trained up quickly.
During the integration process, these employees received over 300 hours of training, which was additional to their daily work
Over 9 million recurring clients
Their financial products were constantly changed and updated, and they had to be explained to the Firm’s employees.
Expansion plan La Caixa (1990-2002)
Besides these self-explanatory figures, the solid reputation of the firm could be verified through the Índice de Reputación de las Marcas (IRMA), an index which attempted to distinguish the reputation of a brand in their competence market, the reputation corresponding to the firm within the whole society and between the diverse interest groups. After this index was prepared, the IRMA was issued by several Spanish publications, both general and specifically Economic.
In a list of companies, the brand image that best transmitted all of its values, with regards to financial entities established in Spain was La Caixa. Behind La Caixa, from highest to lowest positions, were BBVA, Santander Central Hispano, Caja Madrid, Banesto, Banco Popular and Banco Sabadell (draw in points), Bankinter, and Deutsche Bank.
However, considering the importance of the factors measuring reputation, the study remarked the importance given by clients, through their vision of the brand, to two variables: quality (a value catalogued as functional) and ethics (a social value). In this sense, if a list where quality was the measuring concept, La Caixa was ranked first again, followed by four banks: BBVA, Bankinter, Santander Central Hispano and Banco Popular.
Similarly, the image which every consumer of the bank market had of each firm was marked by the ethics perceived. In a list determined by this variable, La Caixa was once more ranked first, followed now by Banco Popular, BBVA, Banco Sabadell and Caja Madrid.
Regarding e-banking, once more the top visited website for banking firms (as of the 16th of February 2005 and according to the internet portals HYPERLINK “http://www.rankia.com” www.rankia.com and HYPERLINK “http://www.alexa.com” www.alexa.com) was La Caixa, followed by Caja Madrid, SCH, ING Direct and Banco Popular.
“la Caixa” and eLearning
The necessity to implement an eLearning platform in la Caixa arose, as is the case in many other banking companies, from the fact of having a very large structure which had to be trained (bank executives), which was geographically dispersed into business micro-units (bank offices), with easy access to IT tools (PC´s in every work desk, called Financial terminal), and with a number of products and services in constant renewal (bank services).
In “la Caixa”, a newly hired employee would need to under go 300 hours of training, which were provided by various means and formats (CD-Rom, books, meetings…). Obviously, in such a dynamic domain as that of the financial sector, with highly volatile products and services, the reality of always driving forwards: meant it was practically impossible to keep all the necessary people up to date. On the other hand, the coordination of live classes due to the geographical dispersion of the offices meant that it was an arduous task and the fact that the meeting would take place “just in time” made it even more so.
Supported by the web and by the use of communication tools (chats, Messenger services, forums…), “la Caixa” designed a virtual learning program, that used the extranet, containing all the learning tools necessary to ensure an itinerary of insertion-training that corresponded to the needs of all parties involved in the psychological contract: the new professionals and the company, didn’t see this as a far off and abstract entity but as personal and humane: their office manager, line manager….
Noting the success of the online training for new employees, “la Caixa” decided to expand the virtual space to further train other members of staff and allow them to share experiences: Office managers, financial consultants, etc. This virtual platform of virtual training with its integrated learning is known as HYPERLINK “mailto:Virt@ula” Virt@ula.
The chronological Evolution of Virt@ula
The specific and precise need to start a project in this area is due to the fact that “la Caixa” hired, in the last few years, thousands of new employees (NNEE) with the objective of balancing out the age pyramid and ensuring their expansion outside of Cataluña and the Balearic Islands (refer to the Expansion Plan).
As mentioned earlier, the NNEE´s were obliged to undergo training for a period of one year, 300 hours of lessons, combined with meetings and distance training with CD´s and documents, using the post as a way of communicating. Carried out in this way the training of thousands of NNEE´s was not possible due to high costs. On top of this the updating of educational information was extremely difficult to carry out within reasonable intervals and a reasonable price range. For this reason, the department of Human Resources of “la Caixa” decided to favour a long distance training project via the Internet: eLearning.
Never the less the necessity was very real and as with any other project they had to link the training to the job´s needs: accompanying, favouring and facilitating a project of change and development. The goal was, and remains, to achieve the integration, professionalism and to unite all personnel within the organization: of which 1500 newly graduates, in an organization that is made up of more than 4700 unities of business(offices), dispersed across Spain, with common goals (business), but with diverse realities (social scene- economics, styles, etc.). Moreover, the University baggage of these people was heterogeneous: economics, rights, businesses, etc
The standard Organigram of the “la Caixa” network illustrates this point, in order to situate all the cases that shall be discussed:
Standard Organigram of “la Caixa” Network
The standard Organigram of the “la Caixa” network
In 1999, “la Caixa” contracted GEC S.A. as their supplier for this Project. GEC S.A. is a company from part of the Grupo UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) dedicated to eLearning in a corporative environment and the development of virtual communities. Further more, stock holding for the entity “la Caixa”.
GEC S.A. started to work on the HYPERLINK “mailto:Virt@ula” Virt@ula project in the autumn of 1999, in January 2000, they started their first two virtual classes with 25 NNEE and a virtual tutor for each class. The NNEE´s virtual tutors were employees “la Caixa”, office directors or sub directors that carried out this role as well as their everyday office job.
The NNEE´s training program included and still includes a fundamental central program: a « formative itinerary» made up of various modules of office banking basics (such as Liabilities, Insurance, Credits, Taxation, etc.). Additionally, there are Economic and Financial courses available, on legal aspects of the banking profession, as well as general management topics such as Communication and Negotiation.
Below is an example of a «formative Itinerary» for a Financial Services consultant, using HYPERLINK “mailto:Virt@ula” Virt@ula as was the format in 2004.
New Communities
From this first model, the classes were replicated for the NNEE´s with «formative itinerary» but also continued working on other classes that dealt with more general topics: common objectives, shared needs and other general topics… In this way, they developed other classes aimed at: Office Directors, Financial service consultants, etc.
Virt@ula as a cohesive element aimed to cultivate preexisting natural learning communities, with common goals, worries and shared anguish.
The management of project Virt@ula knew that electing virtual practice communities was not a trivial matter, and knew that a false decision could provoke the disinterest of the participants, as could the lack of common themes and as a result leave the community.
Five main communities focusing on the teaching activities:
New Employees (NNEE). In this virtual environment, the 1500 NNEE that are recruited annually receive their training in the first year, following the courses available in the « formative itinerary». The NNEE´s are helped by the virtual tutor. In 2004, the internal virtual tutors were made up of 34 office directors or sub directores, that tutored between 1 and 3 virtual classes, with approximately 20 - 25 students (NNEE) per tutor. Therefore:
34 tutors x 2 classes/tutor (prom.) x 20-25 NNEE/class (prom.) ≈ 1.500 NNEE
The virtual classes, 130 in 2004, were formed bearing in mind the geographic proximity, meaning, that they were made up of employees from offices belonging to a specific geographic zone in order to facilitate the non virtual classes.
In this community the main concepts of business banking are learnt across small case studies, called activities. These activities are extracted from everyday job situations and are co produced by the employees, together with an educationalist, a technician and an expert in the specific field. The participants two blocks of courses: the formally introduced «formative itinerary» and the generic content.
The itinerary blocks consist of themes such as “la Caixa” products and is made up of six modules: Taxing on projects and Tax on revenue, Assets, Liabilities, Services, Electronic Banking and Insurance. The generic block content refers to topics that don’t form part of the products offered by “la Caixa” but that are still important in order to have an overview of the banking sector: Tax, Economic Theory (Euroland), Legal aspects in banking operations, etc.
The time to complete each module takes approximately around one and a half months, although the exact dates are drawn up by the tutor. The participants follow these courses on a flexible calendar, but should finish the virtual part of the course before attending the corresponding non virtual class where the module or corresponding modules will be discussed.
It is very important to take into account that the courses are accredited and do not count towards any kind of evaluation of the employee: only the professional performance and the business results of the NE, allow the employees to have a permanent contract with “la Caixa” or to not have their contract renewed, but never these courses. The training program of NNEE was a means of achieving the business results necessary but not as a way of assessing the professionals performance. The tutors are there to complement the work, help, consult and mentor but never to judge.
Obviously, encouraging the NNEE´s to finish the courses on time but never surveying the student… The real examiners of the NNEE, those that decide the continuity of the organization, were the line managers, office directors or sub directors that evaluated with regards to the contribution to the business.
The assimilation of the module is produced because the participant has to under go five or six activities in every course, on an individual basis and then send the answers to a discussion forum in the virtual classroom. If any doubts arise, they can refer to the consultation materials available or ask the tutor. The time needed to complete each activity takes between 10 minutes to 3 hours.
The tutors wait until all the students answers have been submitted and then log the information on the class activity forum (where everyone can see), commenting and sharing the most common answers provided by the students or correcting certain students in their personal mailbox (where only the participant in question can see the correction).
In the forum, the tutors can also discreetly suggest activities to students, according to the module, if they think that it may benefit the students learning. This also provides a way of encouraging the virtual class, if the tutors notice that there is little activity within the class. It was important to promote interaction between the participants for the class to become a learning community and not just a private session.
The virtual classrooms and the collective spaces in the community (the forums for each class, as well as the general forum or the chat) enormously help the professional integration as well as the personal integration of the NNEE´s in their first year, so that they feel surrounded by an entourage of work colleagues as novice as they are and supported by the tutors, understanding that they are part of an enormous organization that’s much bigger than their bank office, usually only made up of 3 or 4 people.
Metacampus (all). Meeting place for any La Caixa employee wishing to get training by any non-tutored resource in Virt@aula (self-training) or to go for a virtual walk and meet other colleagues
Metacampus was also the place for many micro-communities of identified collectives with specific interests. These micro-communities were called eGroups, and in 2004 there were 276 in activity – though with very different results in terms of participation.
In each micro-community or eGroup, the learning dynamics by means of activities and exercises sent to the forum was the same as in the NNEE community, with the difference being that in this case the tutor was replaced by an expert in the specific field or a prescriptor of the training programmes adapted to the objective.
The project managers were not sure of why some eGroups had good results but others had bad or very bad results, when the learning approach was so similar in all of them.
Financial Services Consultants (FSC). Employees who had been working in the company for 2-4 years and wishing to specialise in customer consultancy, the Financial Services Consultants were a recently created group (2002) who, despite their seniority in the company, also needed much training to gain this specialisation.
Once more, the teaching method was mainly based in activities in where students replied to the discussion forum of each class. Afterwards, the students could obtain feedback from the trainers (from trainers’ comments in the forum) and could ask questions, etc, once the activity was closed. In the case of FSCs, their virtual tutors used to be their own office managers and their classroom trainers were made up of several experts in the specific fields, both in-house and out-sourced.
In-house trainers. This community was comparatively small and the project managers did not know how important it would be in Virt@aula – at first it had been open as an experiment.
In this community, the in-house trainers in La Caixa could meet – it intended to be a communication channel and a link for all Virt@ula tutors. It was their “private corner” where they could share their training experiences, enhance their sense of membership in the trainers’ team and help each other – a staffroom as in many teaching centres but articulated in a virtual world.
From what has been said so far it can be assumed that the objective of this meeting place was not to train tutors as such - they were already performing their role at full capacity - but to communicate with them, propose topics to think about, discuss any specific issue which may need further study, mark out the basic strategy for the training plan, provide the necessary tools for their role, offer improvement workshops, motivate them, and allow them to virtually meet and discuss topics of common interests. As a result, in this environment there were not any regulated training programmes or “routes” for tutors, but a number of proposals which could be of interest for them. Similarly, there was not a proper “tutor of tutors”. What they did offer was a permanent coaching performed basically by the Virt@ula project managers, La Caixa HR staff and even some out-sourced expert (for instance, the author of this case study).
Office Managers (OM). The training actions these people could develop in Virt@ula consisted of preparing a business plan for their office. This business plan was not ‘official’ – that required by their LoS managers to report the results corresponding to the unit these people managed (the office), but it seemed a very effective training to prepare for the real business plan: it could be a good draft to prepare the official reporting to superiors with full guarantees.
In order to carry out this study, they did not start by reading the ‘theory’, then doing some exercises, followed by a couple of case studies and, only after all that, applying what they had learnt in real life situations. Instead, they started by involving pupils in the core activity of the course: doing their business plan for their own office. Pupils were asked to do a brainstorming activity, writing their first ideas to this respect in 10 lines (how they wanted their office to be three years down the line), and to send this to their tutor. From there, the tutor guided them in the preparation of their offices’ business plans, and within that process, orientated them to read the corresponding materials (always available in Virt@ula).
Please see below the graphic design of the access page for these 5 communities.
In 2004, the Virt@ula project managers were very confident in their online training plan for new employees (which was actually a blended plan, as classroom seminars were included at the end of each unit), as it had proven very effective from their creation back in 2000. However, they were not as confident of their effectiveness with the other groups: Metacampus, Financial Services Consultants, In-house Trainers and Office Managers. Some of these communities had started strongly but others had not, and their uneven performance (also perceivable at a micro level in the disparity of the eGroups) was a cause of confusion for them.
Had the virtual communities been correctly chosen? Would the teaching methods (sending activities to the forum, feedback from tutor for everybody and a last classroom seminar to close each unit) have the same response in all groups? Was it necessary to implement evaluations? Was the choice of virtual tutors correct?
In December 2004, the project managers passed these and other queries onto the author of the case, as he was preparing his research for his PhD.
Case study prepared by Prof. Dr. Íñigo Babot.
Case study on real company situations for group analysis and discussion. Do not prejudge the suitability of the statements or actions for discussion.
Copyright © 2006, Íñigo Babot
The partial or total reproduction of this text is prohibited without the author’s specific, written consent
Network Excecutives (26)
General Directors, Territory Directors and General Management
Business Directors (DAN) (207)
Every DAN is in charge of a number of offices, usually between 15 and 35 offices
Office Manager (DU) (≈ 4700)
An office Sub director is also present in all offices.
Employees
Usually, each office has a Manager, a Sub director and around 0 to 4 employees without managerial duties, depending on the size of the office.
