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Digital induction for Golden Charter

Leveraging animation and illustration to place Golden Charter’s values at the heart of their approach to funeral planning. This project was shortlisted for ‘Best technology-based onboarding programme​’ at the Learning Technologies Awards 2020.
Industry Sector
Service
Solution
Custom Learning

The Challenge

Golden Charter is an independently owned pre-paid funeral planning business that wanted to provide a consistent induction experience for its employees across the UK by digitizing its approach to onboarding.

Achieving this goal would deliver clear benefits for the organization:
  • It would provide a streamlined and consistent introduction for new starts, regardless their role
  • It would help embed understanding of the company’s values and products to ensure a more consistent customer experience
  • It would help the business take another step toward digital transformation
  • And, with 230 core staff, a sales team distributed across the UK, and a network of almost 3,000 funeral directors, it would save costs on the existing face-to-face induction.

The Solution

Learning Experience Manager Tracey McDonald and her team worked with Golden Charter to develop three short digital modules, each no more than 10 minutes long.

Module 1 used beautiful animation and illustrations, aligned to Golden Charter’s brand, to introduce the business and challenge the perception that funerals are a difficult topic.
 
Module 2 leveraged audio interviews with Golden Charter’s CEO and Exec Team to introduce how the company’s three main teams work together to help customers celebrate life and prepare for the future.
 
Module 3 introduced Golden Charter’s products and services and gave new starts an opportunity to identify funeral plans that met sample customers’ needs.
 
Throughout all three modules, there was a strong focus on the organization’s values, approach and brand. The Golden Charter team needed the digital component to feel like an authentic part of the onboarding journey.

The feedback from our managers is that our new starts are getting to grips with the ‘Golden Charter way’ far quicker. The conversations the modules are provoking are far more productive than what we were previously experiencing. The new starts are thinking about things in a much more considered way.

Pamela Malkin, Organisational Development Consultant
Golden Charter

The Results

The new digital induction has provided a consistent welcome to new starts and paid for itself in the first 12 months when compared to the face-to-face induction.

During interviews with new starts who had been through the induction, it became clear that the three modules had given them the confidence to discuss the funeral industry and Golden Charter’s place in it.

The ability to hear from the senior team, and to see Golden Charter’s brand reflected throughout, created a sense of connection – and prompted some personal reflections.

As David Thomson, Golden Charter’s Interim Director of Change, says:

"The highlight was the ‘Think you know funerals?’ animation. It dealt very sensitively and respectfully - but also boldly - with an area not everyone is comfortable with. It also gave me personal pause for thought in terms of my own personal view of the subject of funeral planning.”

In interviews with managers following the rollout of the modules, it became apparent that the modules had brought additional benefits.

For some, they had become a go-to resource for finding answers on Golden Charter’s structure and products. For others, they had become a useful tool that could be shared with colleagues to answer key questions.