Insights from leaders: how the training portal helps to optimize processes at Pizza Day. Relevance and assessment of managers.
How to get employees interested in learning? What motivational methods and incentives should be used? These are the questions that concern every training specialist.
Pizza Day has created its own successful recipe, which has helped to increase the effectiveness of learning and employee engagement on the learning portal.
Kateryna Martirosova, Head of the Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people, spoke about the importance of regularly checking the relevance of information, the specifics of assessing top management and the development of the information center.
«Pizza Day» is a chain of pizzerias in Ukraine. The company has been operating in the market since 2017. Today, the chain has 164 locations in 19 cities of Ukraine.
The company has about 1000 employees.
Implementation of online learning
Pizza Day implemented LMS Collaborator in 2021. It was important for managers to quickly and clearly inform the team about changes, innovations, share experiences, and learn. The introduction of a system for distance learning helped to solve this problem. The head of the Training Center shared what they managed to do with the help of LMS Collaborator:
– systematized the learning process;
–organized the adaptation of newcomers;
– created a corporate Knowledge Base;
– automated personnel assessment;
– gamified learning.
Regular checking of the learning information relevance
The first thing you should pay attention to is the relevance of the information posted on the training portal. Pizza Day’s training department involved experts, top management, and company executives in the process of checking the relevance of the information. The audit lasted 2 weeks and helped to identify 24% of outdated information.
Kateryna Martirosova – Head of Department at Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people
«Employees don’t go to a learning portal that contains outdated information. In addition, it is impossible to estimate how many mistakes employees made and what kind of mistakes they made because they read outdated information. 24% of outdated information is a lot. We have updated all our information and involved top managers in this process. The first thing I strongly recommend is to understand that it is not the training department that should be responsible for the relevance of information, but those who initiate the posting of this information».
Another problem Pizza Day faced was that subordinates were constantly distracting managers. And this is also a consequence of irrelevant information. The company conducted an audit of chronophages (ed. “time eaters”) of managers, where they were asked what distracted them from work the most. And it turned out to be regular calls from subordinates regarding work processes. To minimize this, it was decided to collect all relevant information in one place – the Knowledge Base of the learning portal.
Pizza Day Corporate Knowledge Base
Convenient and intuitive categories in the Knowledge Base with a search engine have become an important tool for finding information. This helped reduce the number of requests to managers and supervisors.
Knowledge Base search engine
The audit also helped determine what information employees lacked. In addition, we collected feedback from line staff, managers, and top executives. After that, the training department began to create new courses and materials that are needed right now. As a result, everything available on the Pizza Day training portal is up-to-date, proven and approved by the top management.
Kateryna Martirosova – Head of Department at Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people
«We create relevant content that is interesting to watch. When we updated the information, in addition to the 24% that was outdated, we also found out what was missing. And we added it to our Knowledge Base. So I advise you to update and look not only at the relevance, but also at the availability of materials in general».
Conducting a staff assessment
Continuing the topic of “relevance,” Pizza Day uses staff evaluations as a way to collect feedback. After all, it is very important to have up-to-date information about employees: whether they are suitable for the position they hold.
LMS Collaborator has various assessment tools: surveys, 360, 180, 90 degree methods, checklists, testing, etc.
The Pizza Day training portal organized a 360 assessment of the company’s top management. The assessment involves the top manager himself, his colleagues, subordinates, employees of other departments, and the CEO.
360 assessment of the top management of Pizza Day
With the help of LMS Collaborator, Pizza Day managed to automate the process of organizing, conducting, collecting, and analyzing the assessment results, which significantly saved time for HR and survey participants.
Kateryna Martirosova – Head of Department at Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people
«It is important for us to know what line staff think about their managers. Because it’s one thing when a manager says what he or she is doing. But it’s even better when subordinates say whether they are a good manager. We have more than 30 managers, and each of them has about 30 subordinates. How can HR evaluate a manager and determine whether they’re fit for their position? The best solution is to conduct an anonymous survey. Our line staff trusts this survey and takes it regularly. And based on this survey, managers report on a monthly basis. This gives managers a focus for their work with staff».
Anonymous assessment from line staff
Pizza Day also has an extensive manager development program, which includes quarterly testing. When managers arrive at the central office, the training department assigns them a test. It consists of 50 questions and lasts 35 minutes. Managers have only one attempt to pass. The company’s line staff also undergoes such testing at home or at retail outlets.
Knowledge testing in the Pizza Day manager development program
Using LMS as a company’s information center
Pizza Day also uses the learning portal to inform employees about all changes and innovations in the company.
When new information becomes available that needs to be shared with employees, it is coordinated with managers and top managers and passed on to the training department. The training department then posts it on the training portal in a weekly news digest.
Weekly digests for managers
Kateryna Martirosova – Head of Department at Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people
«It’s not the training department that comes up with the information and posts it on the portal, but there are certain initiators and a procedure that everyone follows. When the value of the e-learning system was realized not only by users but also by management, initiators appeared. At first, we only had a news digest for line staff on their processes in stores. After the managers saw how useful and convenient it was, they offered to make a similar digest for them. We got customers. And it’s not us who ask them what has changed and offer to popularize our portal, but they themselves become the initiators. That’s how we came up with a digest for executives».
The learning portal’s analytics tools allow Pizza Day to track who has viewed the digest and how many times they have done so. This helps to actually confirm whether the employee has actually read and understood the information. Managers also use these features to check the activity of their subordinates.
Kateryna Martirosova – Head of Department at Pizza Day Training Center, CEO & Co-founder of 2people
«In the digests, we put labels on who initiated the information. This is very important because everyone knows who is submitting this information. For example, the marketing, finance, or IT».
There are several useful sections in the Knowledge Base on the learning portal, one of which is the section on HRD. This is a good opportunity to communicate with line staff and convey important messages to them. There is also a “nice to meet you” section, where the company acquaints employees with top managers.
Involvement of top management in digests
The company uses an internal chatbot to send prompt messages with a link to the LMS. In particular, there is an anonymous chatbot story where you can send a complaint about anything: processes, a manager, or ask a question to any department.
Since it was not entirely convenient to keep track of whether employees had received responses to their complaints, Pizza Day moved this process to the training portal. The answers to the questions are posted in the company’s Knowledge Base in a separate section “Questions and Answers”. The answers are also added to the digest.
FAQ «Pizza Day»
The recipe of Pizza Day
- Pizza Day regularly checks the relevance of the information posted on the training portal. This process involves the company’s management, top management, and experts.
- The company stores all information in the Knowledge Base on the training portal. Convenient categorization and search tools have helped reduce the number of employee requests to managers and supervisors.
- Pizza Day uses assessment as a way of collecting feedback from the staff. This helps the company to get up-to-date information about their employees.
- All new information that needs to be shared with employees is published in a weekly news digest. The learning portal’s analytics tools help to actually confirm whether an employee has read the information and how many times they have viewed it.
- The company maintains separate sections in the Knowledge Base: a section from HRD, “nice to meet you,” in which employees get to know the top managers. And also FAQ – answers to important questions.
