Visy - Mind Tools Business

The Challenge

Visy is a global leader in the packaging, paper and resource recovery industry, providing high quality, innovative and sustainable packaging products.

They have been leading packaging innovation across 120 sites over Australasia for over 70 years.
They have 7,000 employees headquartered out of their Melbourne head office.
Visy faces several challenges in building capability and supporting workplace performance.
They have a geographically dispersed workforce across multiple sites, with a variety of needs across a broad spectrum of leadership and management skillsets.
Team members are at various management levels and require different types of support from a small centre-led HR and L&D function.

The Solution

Visy’s small centre-led HR function was not in a position to create or maintain content, or provide flexible access across such a broad spectrum of skill areas.

The company needed a solution that would provide a rich library of research based content (tools and resources, rather than courses) along with on-demand access and the ability to respond to individual performance and development needs.

With a large and geographically dispersed workforce, Visy wanted to be able to use technology to help employees access up to date tools and resources anytime, anywhere and on any device; all in the context of their work and needs.

“Working in a geographically dispersed and operational environment, there is a strong culture of on- the-job learning and problem solving at Visy. Our opportunity is to build on these foundations, making workplace learning deliberate and supported by on-demand access to quality resources.”
Andrew Gerkens, Capability and Effectiveness Manager

Why it works:

The Mind Tools toolkit provides reach, scale, flexibility and responsiveness, making it a powerful asset for Visy, HR and our people. The resource strongly aligns with key priorities in Visy’s People Plan and the company’s workplace learning philosophy.

This just-in-time performance support approach to integrating Mind Tools is a critical one for me. People don't have to think about Mind Tools, but are connected to specific tools in the context of their work. We're supporting people to perform the task, respond to challenges they might face. The more we do this, the more people will start to adopt self-directed use of the resource.

The implementation

Visy took a performance-support approach to the implementation of Mind Tools, aligning the resource with key business priorities as an opportunity to create immediate value, enable self-direction and build a foundation for deeper integration. Visy identified a number of key initiatives for the initial phase of the implementation. This included integrating links to selected Mind Tools resources throughout the company’s intranet, within the company’s mentoring program, as well as within internal business processes. Visy embedded curated links to selected Mind Tools resources within the company’s Visy People intranet. In addition to a page dedicated to the why, what and how of Mind Tools, selected links to specific resources are embedded in various pages of the intranet, including the Vision & Values, Managing Your Career, Your Development, Coaching & Mentoring Toolkit and Performance Management. This allowed people to connect with the content within their workflow and the context of their work. Mind Tools also supported Visy’s mentoring program, which focused on women in leadership and operations (WILO), as well as graduates. In addition to creating a rich workplace learning pathway to mentor performance and development, Mind Tools also acted as a resource library to respond to the needs of mentees.

The Results

Visy are not focusing on measuring the impact of Mind Tools through activity (usage) reporting, but instead on how the implementation has affected business outcomes, including the initiatives mentioned above.

During the mid-year performance review period, which occurred four months after the initial implementation, people were connected to process guidance on the Visy People intranet. The site explained the why, what and how of the process.

Links to selected Mind Tools resources were embedded within the intranet site to help people refresh and prepare for the reviews – deliberate performance support. 55% of users accessed 1-4 toolkit pages during the review period, indicating targeted use of Mind Tools and six of the top ten Mind Tools resources accessed during the review period were resources embedded within the intranet page. Results of this single process step were positive and a strong indication that our performance support approach is on the right track.

The live reporting tool has allowed Visy’s L&D team to generate insights around solutions, as well as team member needs and behaviours.

The toolkit has also allowed Visy to offer responsive support to business needs. During the COVID pandemic, specific pages on remote working and virtual teams were set up. A variety of Mind Tools resources were included within the intranet site, gaining high traffic and engagement.

The future

Visy would like to utilise the toolkit further and integrate it within their leadership capability framework, as well as their onboarding programs. They are also looking to leverage business SMEs (HR Business Partners, Project Managers and Continuous Improvement Managers) to utilise Mind Tools as part of their work in building capability, as well as coaching and supporting people. “We need to make it clear that learning isn’t separate from work. Our people learn every day, but they don’t think of it that way. In their mind, they are simply trying get a job done, solve a problem or respond to an issue. By using the language or work, workers and working and positioning solutions as supporting people to perform, respond and develop, we’re likely to get more traction. Performance Consulting is an important capability and mindset for HR and it is a powerful lens for harnessing the full potential of a resource like Mind tools.” Andrew Gerkens, Capability and Effectiveness Manager

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Just in time performance development at Visy