Genpact opens up internal learning platform Genome as 'Adapt and Rise'

For now, the company has opened up part of the offering free as it believes that with more people staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, the offering will let them upgrade their skills

Global professional services firm Genpact, which had developed an internal learning platform called Genome for the training and reskilling of its own employees, is now taking it outside as 'Adapt and Rise', offering it for free for anyone who wants to acquire certain professional skills.

Gianni Giacomelli, chief innovation leader at Genpact, however, ruled out offering it as a service to clients in the near future. "Many of our clients are benefiting indirectly from the platform. We work with clients in a defined set of business processes and industries, and Genome is being put to work there. We are not in the business of selling standalone learning and development services at this point,” he said.

For now, the company has opened up part of the offering free as it believes that with more people staying at home due to the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, the offering will let them upgrade their skills.

Genome, launched internally in November 2018, works on the principle that an employee skilled in a subject, irrespective of seniority, can help others learn their skill set. Based on operating models derived from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Collective Intelligence work, the programme is customising the reskilling paths for each of the employees.

The programme rests on employees taking stock of their skills, enrolling for some kind of e-learning programme that may have internal or external content and connecting and having conversations with people within the organisation, and finally using their newly acquired skill in practical applications to solidify their understanding. 

In the time since its launch, 95 per cent of Genpact's over 90,000 employees have been reskilled or upskilled using Genome.

"This (Adapt and Rise) is a subset of what Genome is. (Its about) 10-20 per cent of what we have in house. It's only 13 roles of the 100 roles we have in the company, 15 skills out of the 70 skills that we have are covered. We have 1500 pieces of content, more than a 1000 hours of learning available (in Adapt and Rise)," said Giacomelli.

The external roll out will be done in partnership with EdCast, a learning experience platform. Each role-based channel features approximately 100 hours of bite-sized learning content, including videos, articles, blogs, podcasts, and more.

In its experience with Genome, Genpact found how important it is for managers to co-own the learning of their teams, said Giacomelli.

"People are usually skeptical of learning because they feel the resources by a corporation are too generic. Its also not free, (because the) individual pays for it in his time. So we found that if we guide people and tell people, based on your role, that these are the five or ten things you need to do, create a personalised improvement plan, it works well," he added.

While this level of personalisation may not reflect in 'Adapt and Rise', it will be able to, for example, suggest to someone in a finance role, what are the digital roles that would be most important for them in the current scenario.