Steelcase

Drives Efficiency, Access, and Impact Through Social Learning

Steelcase, the largest office furniture company in the world, is dedicated to the development of its 12,700 employees. They value learning as an important part of talent retention and have been offering opportunities to learn for decades. Over the past few years, they have shifted their strategy from cumbersome, expensive classroom courses to flexible, cost-efficient, on-demand online learning as one key lever.

From Challenge to Solution

Steelcase discovered Udemy Business at a time when multiple learning platforms were contacting them for business. There were several competing options that Steelcase considered partnering with, but it became quickly apparent that Udemy was the strongest choice. Not only did the Udemy Business model align to the Steelcase L&D strategy of providing accessible, on-demand learning, but the Udemy team provided unmatched support that allowed them to run with the program at a global scale.

The dedication, experience, and generosity of their Udemy team began with the opportunity to “test the waters” with 200 licenses. During this pilot, they were quickly able to asses the appetite for learning at Steelcase as well as the broad scope of topics of interest.

Beyond the pilot, Steelcase’s Udemy team continued to act in close partnership, providing guidance and remaining alongside the L&D team into their expansion phase of the platform. The strong collaboration between Steelcase and Udemy enabled them to quickly design and successfully launch a targeted career development experience focused on employees’ future fitness. Ongoing support provided by the team made the journey smoother and more sustainable for Steelcase than simply working with an “off the shelf” learning solution.

Results — Pairing content with social learning is key

Steelcase was very intentional in how they began to deploy their sourced content learning strategy. “Our strategy is to design learning experiences that meets the needs of our employees at any given point in time,” says Karen Hunter, Team Lead – Learning & Development at Steelcase. “With the amount of disruption and change we have faced over the last year, offering accessible, global learning opportunities that are engaging, supportive and allow employees to “learn in the flow of work” was critical.”

It wasn’t just about checking boxes; they treated this experience as a journey with its own unique story. With the ability to apply key learnings from the pilot, the L&D team at Steelcase was able to design a Future Fit program that was responsive to employees’ needs and the changing conditions. The quick design and launch was a major feat that they could not have done on their own using a traditional learning program approach due to the resource-intensive process of creating proprietary content.