“While discussing how to get the company back on track, we needed a way to identify our most committed team members to help drive the business — that’s when we came up with our ‘Path to Success’ program,” says Albara. “By getting people to take a personality test, an English language exam, and three Udemy courses, our objective was to reignite a passion for learning in the company.”

With its Path to Success program a resounding success — having identified a team of key people and setting L&D expectations going forward — SMART looked for an online learning vendor that could match its requirements. “We looked at a wide range of providers, including LinkedIn Learning, but it was clear from the off that Udemy Business felt like a partner,” says Albara. “Udemy business worked with us on our needs and considered our budget. What’s more, the diverse courses offered by the platform reassured us that our people could always find what they need.”

Enterprise-level learning without the complexity

Benefiting from the platform’s wide-ranging course content and the ability to create individual Learning Paths for each team member, SMART has removed the barriers to creating highly accessible L&D content. It means the company can now assign particular courses based on career goals or role-specific requirements.

“Creating and managing content can be difficult for smaller companies, and learning shouldn’t be something you have to think about — it should be instinctive,” says Albara. “Udemy Business is a great tool that offers a huge diversity of courses and helps build skillsets.”

Fostering a learning culture — one hour at a time

SMART has also boosted the number of learning hours its people do each week, with some super users racking up 15 hours on average. And it’s this learning culture that Albara believes is partly responsible for the company’s significant recent success: “SMART has achieved triple-digit growth for the past three years — Udemy Business has helped ignite this,” says Albara. “Our people are now in the mindset that if they don’t know something, they’ll search for it in Udemy Business. It’s like muscle memory.”

Albara and his team also aren’t in the business of telling their people what to learn. Rather, they believe that whatever their people learn — whether that’s a language skill or even a cookery course — will make them more rounded individuals. “Udemy Business gives us a decent 50/50 mix of technical and soft skills courses,” says Albara. “It’s made us more efficient and productive, and means we can better understand our customers — they’re a lot more satisfied.”

Shifting the balance between technical and soft skills ensures SMART can offer a more varied learning experience. What’s more, the company sends a weekly report to its team members, highlighting the top learners to help foster healthy competition and a learning culture.

“We use Udemy Business as a team member benefit — we even mention it in our job adverts and give access to our customers,” says Albara. “Our team member attrition has reduced significantly. Even some of those that leave the company recommend SMART to their new employer.”